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Behind the scenes of building a biotech company: Previously, I worked with a North American startup company who decided to send their CSO on a massive, multi-month trip around Asia to get physically into the laboratories of their earliest collaborators. To me, this seemed excessive. I was dead wrong. On that note, I’m heading to Melbourne! Not indefinitely, just for a few days (sorry Melbourne friends) Currently, we are getting samples of our chemically defined and animal-free replacement for FBS into the hands of scientists across Australia who want to reduce or eliminate FBS in their cell culture. 🧪 We’ve learned a truly astronomical amount from this pilot phase. As expected, we’ve been able to gather some nice growth curves of cells growing without FBS which we wouldn’t have been able to test on our own. 🔬 But it’s the laboratories in which things haven’t immediately gone according to plan where the really interesting learnings from a company-building perspective have emerged. To make a truly user-friendly product, in the earliest pilot testing stages it’s not enough to just send the product instructions and the product. This stage works best when both you and your amazing collaborator (who’s taking a chance on you!) are fully in the project together - think looking over the experimental plans and exchanging photos in real time. Or ideally, being physically in the lab together. Now, it makes a lot of sense why that North American CSO was spending two weeks with every company that was trialing his technology. And while my own world tour is not on the cards yet, the rest of Australia is certainly within reach. So on that note, I am heading to Melbourne with a big batch of FBS Replacement Solution (FRS) soon. If you’re a scientist interested in removing FBS from your cell culture, I’d love to hear from you, make arrangements to meet in person and see whether we can collaborate to make cell culture more reproducible, cleaner, and animal-free. Of course, the same applies to Sydney-based scientists but you don’t need to wait until I make a special trip! 📷 Excitement at having completed manufacturing batch #1! 
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Before 2024 wrapped up, we manufactured our first batch of FBS Replacement Solution (FRS) for external use. We hand-delivered to scientists at CSIRO and shipped to as a small cell therapies company based in Melbourne.
Along the way to hitting this milestone, we learned an awful lot:
As we roll into 2025, we have plans to ship and deliver FRS to laboratories and small companies across Australia. During the next 6 months, FRS will be tested on a broad range of cell types. We are especially prioritising companies or laboratory groups trying to reduce or eliminate their dependence on FBS for regulatory reasons, so please reach out if that’s you and we will set up a call. From there, we will scale our manufacturing capability. To date, we have compelling data that shows FRS supports the long-term growth of primary cells including muscle stem cells, fibroblasts and chondrocytes, as well as immortalised cell lines such as CHO. We are happy to share a product sheet with data and growth curves upon request. |
What's been happening?Sharing the Media City journey is important to us because we want to encourage the next generation of scientists to establish companies that will advance scientific research. Check back regularly for the "building in public" updates on what it looks like to establish a scientific company. Archives
October 2025
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