TurtleTree and JSBiosciences partner to “make cellular agriculture a reality,” starting with human milk

30 Mar 2021 --- Cell culture media brand JSBiosciences (JSBio) and TurtleTree Scientific (TTS) have signed a letter of intent to collaborate in developing cost-effective cell culture media – starting with human milk. 

For TTS customers, this means having access to nutrient-supporting media solutions at the price point necessary to make cellular agriculture a reality for mass production.

TurtleTree Scientific is an arm of biotechnology company TurtleTree Labs, which will be the first customer to scale up with its human milk ingredients. 

“This cellular growth solution will be applied to grow our cell lines at scale,” Fengru Lin, CEO and co-founder of Turtle Tree Labs tells NutritionInsight. 

JSBio will provide TTS’s customers with a supply of food-grade basal media and media formulation services, as well as large-scale manufacturing.

TurtleTree Labs’ cell-based milk ingredients are positioned for infants, young children and adults alike.Shaping the industry 
Both TTS and JSBio have recognized the potential synergies between their organizations.

When looking at the untapped potential of biotechnology, Lin points to serum replacement as “the next big thing” that TTS can help solve.

“JSBio’s capability to provide supplemented basal media to reduce serum requirements, coupled with TTS’s growing library of growth factors that are an essential part of serum, has the potential to bring down the cost of growth media at large,” they say. 

“This will shape the future of safe, accessible and higher quality sustainable foods.”

Bringing down the cost 
The cell culture media specialist will leverage its expertise and establish local raw material supply chains in this partnership.

After low-cost upstream processes are established, JSBio will help TTS achieve pilot production capacity and, subsequently, commercial production scale in Singapore.

JSBio has a robust track record for the development of mammalian cell culture media with validated large-scale production and cell culture process development capacity. 

For example, the company previously partnered with Etta Biotech to become the exclusive cell culture supplier for Etta Biotech’s transient transfection high titer protein expression platform. The platform is used by leading Chinese antibody-drug pharmaceutical companies, notes Lin.

JSBio’s parent company, Thousand Oaks Pharmaceuticals Group, touts an integrated cost control program in the field of biological products to make production more cost-efficient. 

Moreover, the parent company has also been building the world’s largest cell culture medium manufacturing facility in Haimen, China, since 2019, remarks Lin. 

Reducing the cost of cell growth media could accelerate cell-based agriculture at large.Scaling up human ingredients
TurtleTree Labs has an exclusive patented technology around the production of human milk as well as naturally occurring components within it. 

Last December, TurtleTree Labs scored US$6.2 million in an oversubscribed pre series-A funding from global investors to accelerate its research into cell-based milk. 

TurtleTree aims to transform the US$45 billion infant nutrition market with the commercial production of ingredients positioned to unlock access to better nutrition for infants, young children and adults alike. 

The company anticipates the lucrative infant nutrition market will be worth some US$103 billion by 2026. 

A tailored approach
Lin notes that there will be no “one-size-fits-all final product” as the companies move forward in their partnership. 

“As different companies have very specific requirements depending on their cell lines, we will do customized projects to satisfy their needs and provide supply at a scale required by our clients,” they say. 

In other moves, TTS partnered with Dyadic International this February to develop recombinant protein growth factors.

This month, cell-cultured infant formula producer 108Labs revealed Colostrupedics “whole-human” infant formula, having discovered a novel secretory antibody biosynthesis.

By Missy Green