Cultivated meat pioneer UPSIDE Foods has launched Lucius Labs, a new division specializing in cell culture media for the life sciences industry.
UPSIDE Foods has not responded to a request for comment, but CSO Bob Newman, PhD, explained in a LinkedIn post that the firm is looking for a sales exec “to help build a new vertical business in the life sciences industry with an initial focus on cell culture media.”
He added: “Our team has developed deep expertise in cell culture media based on extensive work in cultivated meat, and we are spinning off a new business: Lucius Labs. Cell culture media products from Lucius Labs will target human and animal health bioprocessing applications including tissue engineering, stem cell therapy, cell therapy, gene therapy, organoid production, viral vector production, vaccine production, and antibody production.”
The Lucius Labs website further explains that the “legacy approach to cell culture media is outdated, inefficient, and expensive,” and that Lucius can produce custom formula “in as little as 2-4 weeks” at a lower cost due to its “unique approach to raw material characterization and qualification.”
With media formulations suitable for suspension and adherent-based applications, it says, “We aim to supercharge your development path by redefining what cell culture media can achieve.”
“Bringing together an expert team to reinvent media development solved for huge barriers. Our significant benefits in cost and custom formula turnaround time – without any drawbacks to performance – unlock massive potential for life-saving technologies. We’re setting the new standard in media.”
Restructuring to remain ‘agile and efficient’
It is not clear how Lucius Labs fits into UPSIDE Foods’ overall strategy, but it will presumably be a means of generating some revenue in the short term for the cultivated meat firm, which told AgFunderNews last March that it had restructured to focus on “commercialization and scale while staying agile and efficient.”
A spokesperson confirmed at the time that there had been a series of layoffs at the firm, which has paused plans to build a large-scale facility in Glenview, Illinois, in favor of expanding its smaller “EPIC” site in Emeryville, California.
Scaling up the EPIC plant would cost substantially less than building a larger plant in Glenview, said UPSIDE Foods, which like many players in the space has been forced to adjust its plans to extend runway during a challenging funding environment.
What’s next for large-scale production of cultivated meat?
UPSIDE Foods—which has raised $608 million since 2015—is the best-funded player in the cultivated meat space. The second-best funded player Believer Meats (which raised $390m+) recently ceased operations, while GOOD Meat, the first company to commercialize cultivated meat, has not yet landed on a model for profitable production at large scale.
In the Netherlands, Meatable closed shop just before Christmas. However, Mosa Meat recently raised €15 million ($17.6 million) to develop its tech platform, while Israel-based Aleph Farms has just partnered with contract manufacturer Cell Agritech and set up an entity in Singapore to serve as its Asia-Pacific hub.
UPSIDE Foods acknowledged in 2023 that its whole-cut technology (for which it has secured regulatory approval in the US) was not yet ready for prime time.
It went on to make more bullish comments about its hybrid approach, whereby it grows cells in suspension and then combines the cell biomass with plant-based meat to create processed products such as nuggets and patties. This approach has yet to secure regulatory approval, however.
In the meantime, it has been battling laws banning sales of cultivated meat in several US states, although it recently scored a win when a judge blocked moves by the State of Texas to dismiss a lawsuit brought on behalf UPSIDE and Wildtype that challenged Texas’s ban.
Further reading:
Mosa Meat raises $17.6m; prioritizes ‘fundamentals over speed’
Insolvency filing lifts lid on Believer Meats’ mounting costs and stalled scale-up
What went wrong at Believer Meats? Sources point to risk, scale, and timing
