News that Icelandic molecular farming company ORF Genetics has just raised funds to scale growth factors for cultivated meat media may come as a surprise given that only a handful of players are at anything close to commercial scale and investment has fallen off a cliff in recent years.
But CEO Berglind Rán Ólafsdóttir says she remains “absolutely convinced cultivated meat will be part of the future food system, alongside other alternative proteins. The question is not if this market will grow, but when and how fast.”
Speaking to AgFunderNews after raising €5 million ($5.9 million) from undisclosed new and existing investors, she said: “For our growth factors, we don’t need hundreds of companies to succeed, just a handful reaching commercial scale will drive strong demand.”
The firm, which is currently supplying companies including Australian cultivated meat startup Vow, is “communicating with many cultivated meat companies around the world,” she added. “So many of them are doing well, with amazing technical platforms and products in development.
“We plan to expand the round by the end of October and welcome new investors to join us in building a company that holds a key position in a market with tremendous growth potential.”
Do cultivated meat cos still need growth factors?
While some cultivated meat companies have optimized their cell lines to thrive with fewer growth factors, said Rán Ólafsdóttir, “Developing methods without growth factors may be far more expensive and riskier than relying on affordable MESOkine available at the scale this industry requires.”
She added: “We fully expect cultivated meat producers to keep optimizing their media, including how they use growth factors. That’s why our roadmap focuses on scaling volume and reducing price, so producers don’t need to worry about growth factor supply or cost.
“Instead, they can channel their valuable resources into other critical bottlenecks.”
The new funds will be used to increase production capacity for MESOkine growth factors 14-fold by 2027, and by a factor of 10,000 by 2032, said the firm, which aims to raise up to €7 million ($8.2 million) by mid-October.
Molecular farming
Growth factors—signaling proteins used in cell culture media to stimulate cell growth and differentiation in cultivated meat production—are typically made via precision fermentation using engineered microbes in costly steel tanks.
As a result, they can come with a hefty price tag, putting pressure on firms to explore alternative production systems from fruit flies to tobacco plants to barley, ORF Genetics’ favored host.
Founded in 2001 by Dr. Björn Örvar, Dr. Einar Mäntylä, and Dr. Júlíus Kristinsson, ORF Genetics initially focused on human growth factors for stem cell research with its ISOkine line, which it is now expanding into medical diagnostics and cell therapy.
It then moved into cosmetics with its DERMOkine line, producing a range of human growth factors including EGF, a protein that stimulates the production of elastin and collagen and plays a starring role in a high-end skincare line BIOEFFECT (spun out of ORF Genetics in 2022).
Animal growth factors used in cell culture media for cultivated meat were an obvious next step for the company, which currently supplies bovine, avian, and porcine growth factors under the MESOkine brand with fish growth factors to come, said Rán Ólafsdóttir.
“Our portfolio today spans about twenty different growth factors and is continuing to grow.”
Barley vs microbes
ORF Genetics grows its barley hydroponically in greenhouses using cheap geothermal energy for heat, light and power but has also been running open field cultivation trials in Canada for several years. Barley is an ideal crop to engineer because it does not invade natural habitats, while ORF Genetics’ self-pollinating varieties (which do not cross-pollinate with neighboring crops via insects or wind) are self-contained, says the firm.
Meanwhile, greenhouse and open field production are both cheaper than precision fermentation (producing growth factors using microbes), claimed Rán Ólafsdóttir. “Our protein factory is simply the barley seed, which is an inexpensive and highly scalable factory.”
Downstream processing costs are also lower as the growth factors in barley do not have to be highly purified to work in cultivated meat production. As a result, MESOkine products contain some native barley proteins as well as recombinant proteins, she confirmed.
“Because barley is already widely consumed by humans, its proteins are a safe and effective choice for cultivated meat production and they contribute to highly efficient production processes.”
Asked how regulators are viewing ORF Genetics products, she said, “Regulators usually focus on the residual levels of growth factors in the final product, often comparing cultivated meat to conventional meat. Products made with our MESOkine growth factors have already passed regulatory approvals in multiple countries. A significant part of our customer service is our quality team works closely with customers to support their approval processes.”
The post ORF Genetics scales growth factor production for cultivated meat: ‘The question is not if this market will grow, but when’ appeared first on AgFunderNews.
