What started as a conversation between friends over drinks has grown into a South African biotech breakthrough that could help make lab-grown meat more affordable.
Immobazyme, a biotechnology start-up founded by three Stellenbosch University alumni, is working with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to produce a key ingredient used in cultivated meat production, a development that could help reduce costs in a field still struggling to scale.
The company was founded by Dominic Nicholas, Ethan Hunter and Nick Enslin, who met during their honours year at Stellenbosch University, where they developed a shared interest in biotechnology.
Their idea took shape during postgraduate studies after discussions on making enzyme-based technologies more accessible.
Now, the company is focused on producing a fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2), a protein essential for growing animal cells in a lab-based meat production.
“Companies specialising in cell-cultivated meat take a cell from a cow, a fish or a chicken. They take it to the laboratory and then they make that one cell become many cells, and eventually those many cells become a food product,” said Enslin, the company’s chief commercial officer.
However, Enslin said the industry remains extremely cost-sensitive, largely because of the price of growth factors such as FGF-2.
“Pretty much 90% of the cost associated with lab-grown meat is due to the cost of these growth factors,” he said.
He added that the local cultivated meat sector is still very small, with few active companies in South Africa.
“So locally there aren’t that many cell-cultured meat companies. There was Mzansi Meat, which became Newform Foods; they’ve moved their headquarters to the UK,” Enslin said.
“So the opportunity to impact the industry right now is pretty limited, just because there isn’t much of an industry.”
Hopefully, it sparks a whole new wave of innovation and we get more entrepreneurs who want to start these kinds of biotech companies
— Nick Enslin, Immobazyme’s chief commercial officer
Despite this, he believes local biotech ingredient production could play a key role in building a future sector.
“But future companies that get founded around vanilla agriculture or lab-grown meats have an opportunity to join up with local ingredient manufacturers and get access to really affordable growth factors,” Enslin said.
“Hopefully, it sparks a whole new wave of innovation and we get more entrepreneurs who want to start these kinds of biotech companies.”
The breakthrough came after Immobazyme partnered with the CSIR to scale up production of FGF-2 using genetically modified bacteria and large bioreactors.
“They brought the technology for us to look at development and scalability,” said Dr Veshara Ramdas, a biotechnology expert at the CSIR.
The process involves growing bacteria under tightly controlled conditions, then extracting and purifying the protein into a usable form for the cultivated meat industry.
“For the first time in South Africa, we were able to demonstrate a process for this growth factor at a 50-litre bioreactor scale,” said Ramdas.
She added that the achievement could open the door to local production of other growth-related proteins used in biotechnology.
Enslin said the collaboration with CSIR has been crucial not only for production but also for knowledge sharing.
On safety and regulation, Enslin said the production process itself follows established manufacturing standards, while the final food products are subjected to strict regulatory approval.
“Food manufacturers or lab-grown meat companies have to register their product and get it approved through the local regulator or the local authorities,” he said.
“That whole dossier and regulation approach will assess if they are safe. That includes looking at whether they are ISO 22000 certified, whether they are halal, kosher, all of that.
“So obviously all food products need to be safe to consume, and the government authorities for that specific country need to review it, understand it, and then either approve it or not approve it.”
The project was supported by the department of science, technology and innovation and the Technology Innovation Agency under the Biomanufacturing Industry Development Programme.
Enslin said the collaboration has been key to the company’s growth.
“The BIDC is an incredible facility; it is a world-class facility,” he said. “But I would almost say beyond the facility itself, the equipment and the machinery, there was this flow of ideas; it was a collaborative effort.”
He added that the company now plans to expand production and continue developing other proteins.
“At the end of the day, we got commercially viable product through this relationship, which is really cool to see,” said Enslin.
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