3D Bio-Tissues and SeaWith team up to cut cultivated beef media costs

3D Bio-Tissues and South Korea-based cultivated meat company SeaWith have partnered on a production collaboration aimed at improving cell growth efficiency and reducing costs in cultivated beef manufacturing. The companies said the agreement would see SeaWith integrate 3D Bio-Tissues’ City-Mix technology into its production process as it worked toward regulatory approval and commercial scale-up.

According to SeaWith, City-Mix would be used to support higher cell growth and density while reducing reliance on conventional growth media, which remains one of the most significant cost drivers in cultivated meat production. The company reported that the approach could reduce growth media costs by as much as 30%, contributing to lower overall production costs and improved scalability.

The partnership was first reported by Vegconomist and centered on SeaWith’s cultivated beef platform, which is based on muscle stem cells derived from Hanwoo cattle, a premium Korean beef breed. SeaWith said the collaboration aligned with its efforts to optimize production performance ahead of regulatory submissions.

Heejae Lee, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder of SeaWith, said the partnership supported both regulatory and technical objectives. “As Korea’s designated Regulatory Free Zone operator for cultivated meat, we are pleased to partner with an industry leader like 3D Bio-Tissues as we move toward regulatory approval,” Lee said. “City-Mix technology aligns exceptionally well with our high-performing Hanwoo-derived muscle stem cells, supporting both robustness and scalability in our production process.”

Growth media cost has long been cited as a major barrier to economically viable cultivated meat, particularly for products such as beef that require high cell densities and extended cultivation times. While many companies have focused on reformulating media components or developing serum-free alternatives, SeaWith said City-Mix offered a complementary approach by enabling cells to grow more efficiently with lower media input.

3D Bio-Tissues developed City-Mix as a modular biomaterial platform designed to improve cell attachment, proliferation, and density in three-dimensional cultures. The company has positioned the technology as a way to decouple cell growth performance from escalating media costs, particularly in high-density tissue engineering applications.

Under the partnership, SeaWith said it would leverage City-Mix to support both near-term development work and longer-term manufacturing readiness. The company did not disclose financial terms of the agreement, nor did it provide timelines for commercial production or regulatory approval.

SeaWith operates within South Korea’s regulatory free zone framework for cultivated meat, which allows designated companies to conduct development and scale-up activities under regulatory oversight. The company has previously said the framework was intended to accelerate technical readiness while supporting the development of domestic cultivated meat capabilities.

While the companies did not release independent performance data alongside the announcement, SeaWith characterized the reported media cost reductions as a meaningful step toward addressing one of the sector’s most persistent challenges. Cost-effective scale-up remains a central focus across the cultivated meat industry as companies seek to bridge the gap between laboratory success and commercial viability.

The collaboration also reflected a broader trend toward technology partnerships within the cultivated meat ecosystem, as companies increasingly combine specialized platforms rather than developing all components in-house. Biomaterials, scaffolding systems, and cell-support technologies have emerged as key areas of collaboration as the industry works to improve efficiency at scale.

Neither company commented on whether the City-Mix integration would be limited to beef or extended to other cultivated meat products in the future. Both emphasized that the partnership was intended to support scalable manufacturing rather than near-term product launches.

As cultivated meat companies continue to face scrutiny over costs, timelines, and regulatory progress, incremental improvements in cell density and media efficiency remain central to efforts to make commercial production feasible. The 3D Bio-Tissues and SeaWith partnership added another example of how targeted technical collaborations are being used to address those constraints, even as broader commercialization challenges remain unresolved.