Extracellular Opens Europe’s Largest Contract Pilot Facility for Cell-Cultivated Products

BRISTOL (UK) - 25 September 2023 - Extracellular announced today the opening of Europe’s largest contract pilot facility dedicated to the development and production of cell-cultivated products, at its Bristol site in the UK. This milestone marks a major step toward enabling the industry to reach commercial scale.

Extracellular began with a focus on cell-cultivated meat, a slaughter-free alternative with significantly lower climate, water, and land use impact. As the company grew, it recognized that producers across the sector, including those working on seafood, cosmetics, and materials, face similar challenges when scaling from lab to commercial production. Often referred to as "crossing the valley of death," this transition is hindered by high costs and long timelines required to build pilot-scale infrastructure. Extracellular’s facility was created to solve this problem, offering essential scale-up and manufacturing services to help companies bridge the gap and accelerate to market.

A total facility capacity of 10,000L is planned for Extracellular’s pilot facility in the UK, with a production capacity of up to 50 tons of cultivated meat per year with existing capabilities, and up to 100 tons per year with predicted future capabilities. Extracellular’s pilot facility operates as a food-grade production facility, and is currently operational at 200L scale. 2,000L capacity is due to be operational by December 2023. The facility will hold multiple bioreactors from 50L to 5,000L that will be available to cell-cultivated companies through Extracellular’s development, scale-up and contract manufacturing services.

Founder and CEO of Extracellular, Dr Will Milligan, said “the vision for the facility is to eliminate the need for cultivated meat companies to develop pilot-scale facilities altogether, saving each company millions of pounds in CAPEX, cutting years out of their commercialisation timelines, and de-risking the scale-up process by providing the much-needed manufacturing expertise. This will allow cultivated meat companies to focus on their goals of developing great consumer products at achievable prices”.

The intermediate and mid-scale capabilities established at the new contract pilot facility build on Extracellular’s extensive expertise with a variety of animal cell lines. Extracellular will be able to support companies from around the world from its site in the UK, and are already supporting more than a dozen customers across 8 countries and 4 continents.

Future facility expansion plans by Extracellular to support the development and commercialisation of cell-cultivated products includes dedicated scale-up sites in strategic geographies, including in Asia and the Amercias, in the coming years.

Extracellular welcomes new collaborations with companies seeking development and scale-up support in cultivated meat, seafood, and other cell-cultivated applications.

About Extracellular

Extracellular’s mission is to accelerate the potential of cell-cultivated products by being the preferred global manufacturing partner. By reducing cost, increasing scale, and shortening time to market, Extracellular enables companies to bring innovative products to life.

Services include bioprocessing and scale-up, media optimization, cell-line development, and access to high-quality, license-free cell banks