“Cellufacturing”: 108Labs targets 99% cost decrease in cell-based infant formula

22 Jun 2021 --- 108Labs is building a “Cellufacturing” facility for cell-based human milk, targeting a ton of milk production per day in the first stage. The US-based company expects to spend a “few million” on the pilot factory build-out over the next couple of years. 

CEO Shayne Giuliano tells NutritionInsight that Colostrupedics whole-human infant formula could hit shelves in three to four years, but the cost of production and scalability remain primary obstacles. Therefore, the factory design will allow for continuous scalability with no ceiling.

However, the scale of production will be relatively low initially since 108Labs does not need large quantities of milk to advance its clinical work. This is necessary to show safety before feeding cell-cultured milk to infants.The milk factory will be autonomous and continuously scalable. 

Milk on Mars?
The company is building the facility in a repurposed factory building in Hillsborough, North Carolina, US.

“We believe almost any commercially zoned facility could host a milk factory. To have the biggest impact with cell-cultured milk around the world, we need to show it’s possible to make milk everywhere and anywhere. We even want to show this system can make milk on Mars for the first colonists,” states Giuliano. 

He emphasizes that the actual facility is not that high-tech; it just needs to be clean. Most of what 108Labs works with is non-toxic food-grade materials. Therefore, the factory is essentially a biosafety level 1 facility with incubators and cold storage.

Slashing cost beyond 99%
Giuliano emphasizes that until the cell-cultured milk industry shows investors and commercial partners that it can scale trivially and control costs, it is unlikely that any products will hit the market. Thus, any delay toward accelerating the cost reduction and scalability is just delaying the path to market. 

“Making milk requires niche medium and growth factors and 3D culture systems. These ingredients and systems currently are expensive and require significant continuous labor to make.”

Currently, lab-grown milk costs close to US$1,000 per oz to produce. The factory design is specifically designed to achieve US$1 per oz production of cultured cell milk as the end goal of the build-out.

“Once we can show a cost of production closer to US$1 per oz in a factory design that can mostly run itself, I think we’ll see incredible growth through replication of our factory design with commercial partners around the world,” notes Giuliano. 

It is also expensive to maintain and harvest the bioreactors at the scale needed to impact infant formula, therapeutics or nutraceuticals.

“Because our bioreactors are capable of continuous production, we can benefit from automation and computer-driven systems more so than other biotechnologies because the cost savings and efficiencies achieved by our factory design will also be continuous,” he explains.The factory is located in Giuliano’s hometown of Hillsborough, North Carolina, US.

Harnessing AI and algorithms
The factory is a pilot design, with 108Labs developing and proving out the hardware and software stack to show that it can trivially add capacity. 

“The reason a continuously scalable design is possible is fundamental to our biotechnology yielding continuous production, with bioreactor runs that can last months or years. So, once we have our software and hardware stack in place, there should be no limit to how much we could increase capacity, and the factory design could be recreated anywhere in the world,” details Giuliano. 

Currently, the biggest challenge is developing the algorithms and AI to maintain the cells and harvest the bioreactors autonomously while maximizing per cell production continuously over time. 

“108Labs is uniquely suited to solve these problems as a company that was founded as a software and biotech company from the beginning,” he states. 

Targeting vertical slice completion
The company is now focused on building out its software and hardware stack, hoping to complete its “vertical slice” – a software concept – by the end of the year.

“This means we will want to have all the parts in place for a single bioreactor to run autonomously using a beta version of our software and fluidics systems.”

Then, the company will begin to scale this up, showing that what works for one bioreactor works for many bioreactors. 

“There will likely come a point within the next couple years where we show the scalability and cost is suddenly solved. Then we can focus on partnering to build more factories with commercial partners while finishing clinical work and planning our initial product releases,” Giuliano explains. 

Cell-based milk gathers speed
Giuliano also acknowledges that the “world of cell-cultured milk has grown and accelerated” significantly in recent months. 

Earlier this month, Biomilq successfully produced milk outside the breast, with the company targeting launch in just over three years. 

Meanwhile, cell culture media brand JSBiosciences and TurtleTree Scientific recently signed a letter of intent to collaborate in developing cost-effective cell culture media – starting with human milk.

By Katherine Durrell