NU/1246-16 CellulaREvolution: Commercialisation of university research through provision of management skills to assist in successful spin-out company creation

Professor Che Connon and Dr Martina Miotto of Newcastle University, have developed revolutionary technologies to increase the efficiency and scalability of in vitro cultured adherent cells. The unique technology facilitates the culture of cells in serum-free medium whilst also providing an innovative system for the continuous manufacture of adherent cells. In particular, two products will be developed: i) a stable peptide-based coating that increases the proliferation rate of adherent cells under serum-free conditions in both static and dynamic conditions; ii) the world first continuous bioreactor capable of the unremitting production of cells via controlling adhesion and self-detachment of cells from a smart lipopeptidic coating. The advantages of continuous bioprocessing in adherent cell production versus a batch process (which has remained fundamentally unchanged for the last 100 years) are numerous (e.g. reduction of footprint, resources and costs), however there are no available commercial technologies that employ this approach to cell manufacture. Thus, our innovative technology is very relevant to companies culturing either a high number or precise form of adherent cell, since it will not only reduce overall costs of manufacture (or allowing several magnitudes of more cells produced at the same cost) but also ameliorate variance in product quality and reproducibility. Target markets for this technology include viral vector manufacturing and cell-based meat manufacturing.

The prospective company creation is quite advanced with potential customers and investors in place and customer development projects agreed. Moreover CellulaREvolution has recently been granted a competitive grant from InnovateUK to create the company and pay salaries of key staff including CEO.