The subsidiary of Ventria Bioscience launched the cell culture media formulation service at the BIO-Europe conference in Berlin, Germany this week, based on its portfolio of supplements made in its completely animal-free system.
“This new service is an extension of the knowledge we have gained in working with our current product line,” Randy Alfano, VP of InVitria Product Development, told Biopharma-Reporter. “We have extensive experience in the incorporation of our blood free components into complete media formulations and have already demonstrated success in the market in converting manufacturing processes to be blood free.”
The firm is offering access to its animal component free cell culture media formulations to preclinical and early-phase clinical firms developing stem cell, immunotherapies, and novel vaccines.
“Every media formulation we develop is completely void of any animal or human-serum derived components, a type of cell culture media that we refer to as ‘Blood Free.’ Further, these media are void of any undefined substances such as plant hydrolysates.”
Rise of animal-free media
InVitria estimates the total mammalian cell culture market to around 30 million liters annually, which is worth around $5.2bn. And according to Alfano xeno-free serums are taking an increasingly larger percentage of that market.
“We believe that recombinant protein expression technology and knowledge in media development has essentially progressed to the point that inclusion of serum or serum-derived proteins is an obsolete approach that has an unacceptable risk in terms of patient safety.”
InVitria is one of a number of firms offering xeno-free options to cell therapy and biopharma firms.
Over the past couple of years, Corning, Irvine Scientific, Evercyte and Worthing have all upped their presence in the space.