(Alliance News) – BSF Enterprise PLC on Wednesday said its subsidiary 3D Bio-Tissues Ltd will partner with cell growth company Qkine to help accelerate the creation of affordable cultivated meat.
BSF shares surged to 19% at 12.51 pence each on Wednesday in London.
The London-based biotechnology investment firm said Qkine and 3DBT will work to “optimise the effectiveness of animal-free cultures to reduce the dependence on other protein compounds, increase yields, and lower overall costs”.
The company said this is expected to pave the way for advances in cellular agriculture in the UK and globally.
BSF said the collaboration will also see 3DBT combine City-mix, its animal-free media supplement for culturing muscle and fat cells, with Qkine’s growth-enabling protein engineering technology. The technology aids the “growth of stem cell culture protocols, while 3DBT’s innovative macromolecular crowding technology enhances the speed of development of protein components in culture media”.
3D-Bio Tissues Chief Executive Che Connon says: “We look forward to partnering with Qkine, which has long been at the forefront of developing high-quality protein growth factors for research applications. Our mission is to accelerate the creation of affordable cultivated meat and we strongly believe combining 3DBT’s unique food-grade City-mix supplements with Qkine’s world-leading products can provide great strides toward reaching this goal, putting us on the path to the sustainable cultivated meat industry.”
The announcement came only days after the US Food & Drug Administration approved lab-grown meat for consumption for the first time.
Last week, BSF announced that it had successfully produced three small prototype fillets of cultivated meat, which marks a major step forward towards producing the UK’s first full-scale cultivated meat fillet.
