Plant cell culture at CPI
Unlocking scalable biomanufacturing of plant cells
Plant cell culture, an established technique for producing natural products that are used in cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals, is rapidly gaining momentum as a powerful platform for sustainable biomanufacturing. It’s emerging not only as an alternative to precision fermentation for producing complex recombinant proteins, but also as a viable route for high-value natural products such as sustainable cocoa, coffee, vanilla, cotton, and wood.
The challenge of scaling plant cell culture
Although plant cell culture is already used at commercial scale in cosmetics and pharmaceutical applications, many startups and spinouts are still early in their development journey. These innovators are focused on de-risking, validating, and scaling their processes yet scale-up remains one of the biggest technical and strategic hurdles.
This is especially true for applications like cocoa, coffee, and vanilla, which require large production volumes to achieve commercial viability. While conventional fermentation often reaches scales above 1 million litres, the largest commercial plant cell culture facilities today are around 75,000 litres. As adoption grows, this gap is expected to close, but bridging it will demand smart design, robust engineering, and careful economic planning.
How CPI accelerates innovation in plant cell culture
At CPI, we recognise the unique challenges of scaling plant cell culture technologies. Our team brings deep expertise in translating bioprocesses from lab to commercial scale, across a range of organisms including plant cells. We help innovators move faster, reduce risk, and avoid common scale-up pitfalls.
Our support spans key areas:
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Bioreactor selection: Matching your cell line and process with the most suitable bioreactor system.
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Process development and optimisation: For both upstream (USP) and downstream processing (DSP).
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Scale-up, scale-down and scale-out: Identifying the right path for commercial deployment.
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Predictive process modelling: Using data-driven tools to streamline development.
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Techno-economic assessment: Evaluating commercial feasibility early on.
Facilities built for growth
Our scale-up infrastructure includes:
Lab-scale systems for early-stage development (from 1L to 400L).
Pilot-scale reactors (2000L) for process validation.
Demo-scale systems (10,000L).
In addition, we offer a range of cultivation platforms tailored for plant cell culture:
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Standard single-use bioreactors.
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Wave bioreactors.
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Custom low-cost single-use systems.
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Other specialised plant cell culture bioreactors.
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