Animal-Free Supplements
“Chief among these [significant trends driven by increased biotherapeutic applications for cell culture] is the transition to animal-free media as the result of safety concerns posted by animal pathogens.” - Frost & Sullivan U.S. Select Cell Culture Markets, 2006
The cell culture industry is moving away from using animal derived components to minimize risks, both real and perceived.
This trend towards animal-free (AF) and eventually chemically-defined supplements is based on the desire to improve the biosafety and consistency of production processes. With this shift, biological equivalence testing, experimental design, and manufacturing scale-up become essential next steps in developing new AF supplements and adapting them to new processes.
An understanding of supplements’ physical and chemical characteristics, which affect not only cell viability, proliferation and productivity but also product quality and purification, becomes more critical for the bioprocess industry.
The objective of introducing AF supplements is to provide suitable non-animal sourced supplements that can enhance or at least equal the performance of animal-derived supplements. Their performance can be tested empirically and optimized for specific cell lines and there is a wealth of information available to researchers, including:
- Numerous published experiments
- Comparative research studies, and
- Statistical software and design of experiments (DOE)
Our animal-free supplement portfolio includes GMO-free plant-derived hydrolysates and yeast extracts, recombinant proteins and growth factors, chemical reagents, and synthetic compounds.
