Perfusion is one of those unglamorous but essential pieces of biotechnology that quietly determines whether cultivated meat can ever move beyond pilot scale. Keeping cells healthy at high density means continuously removing waste and refreshing nutrients, but doing that gently, under sterile conditions, and at scale is harder than it sounds. A recent patent from Ivy Farm Technologies Limited points to a deceptively simple shift in how perfusion might be done, with implications for cost, scalability, and robustness across cellular agriculture.
Air, not pumps, moves the culture
At its core, this invention (WO2025243014A2) rethinks how liquid is moved during perfusion. Instead of using mechanical pumps with moving parts in contact with the sterile culture, Ivy Farm’s system relies on controlled changes in air pressure. By alternately lowering and raising the pressure in a connected separation unit, the cell suspension is gently drawn out of the bioreactor, filtered to remove spent media, and then pushed back again.
This process is similar to a breathing motion rather than a pumping one. When pressure drops, culture fluid flows toward a spent-media separation member that retains the cells whereas when pressure rises, the same cell-rich suspension returns to the bioreactor, refreshed and ready to keep growing. All of this happens without rotors or diaphragms touching the cells that results in lower shear stress, fewer contamination risks, and simpler hardware.
The patent also describes robust separation components, including stainless steel tangential flow membranes that can withstand repeated autoclaving and aggressive cleaning. That matters for real-world manufacturing, where durability and cleanability often decide whether a technology ever leaves the lab. The system is designed to bolt onto common bioreactors like stirred tanks or airlift reactors, rather than requiring bespoke vessels.
Schematic of the pressure-driven perfusion system. Cell suspension flows from the bioreactor (104) through a tangential flow filter (102), where spent media is separated and collected in vessel (108). Alternating vacuum (106x) and air pressure (106y) move the culture back and forth through the system, enabling gentle perfusion without mechanical pumps contacting the culture.
Designed for cultivated meat at scale
Ivy Farm Technologies is best known for its work on cultivated meat, particularly whole-cut products and scaling cell biomass production is a prerequisite for that vision. This patent fits neatly into their broader strategy: reducing capital costs, simplifying process design, and making large-scale cell culture more practical. By stripping perfusion down to pressure control and modular components, the company is addressing one of the less glamorous but most critical bottlenecks in cellular agriculture.
The people behind the work
Congratulations to the inventors — Robin Nyland, Beatrice Sina, Amy Louisa Jean Charley, Pooja Utchanah, and Matti Heikkilä — for their thoughtful contribution to the field.
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This article is authored by biomedical scientist Nidhi Mote, whose work spans bioengineering, mechanobiology, and cell biology. She completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute and is excited to connect with others in cellular agriculture, synthetic biology, tissue engineering, and advanced in vitro systems.
This post is based on publicly available information. Lab Grown Technologies is not affiliated with the inventors or organizations mentioned.