Esco Aster

Esco Aster, a subsidiary of the Esco Life Sciences Group, is a Singapore-based contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) that manufactures and distributes bioreactors for cell-based meat, bioprocessing, stem cell, and life sciences companies. The company’s main cell culture offering is the Aster Mavors platform which claims to shorten the development cycle and the need for a pilot plant. This platform was approved by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), making Esco Aster the first CDMO to be globally approved by a food regulatory authority for animal cell cultivation.

AsterMavors uses Tide Motion Bioreactors and offers end-to-end services, from cell line creation to the final production of cultured animal cells for food consumption. According to the company, Tide Motion is the only adherent platform with a closed cell harvesting platform and can develop fully cultivated and hybrid products. In September 2021, the company received regulatory approval from the SFA to produce cell-cultured meat with the cells subjected to quality review by the SFA.

Key customers and partnerships

In October 2022, the company partnered with cultivated meat producer Meatable, to begin production of cultivated pork in Singapore. Further, in November 2022, the company partnered with Dutch cultivated meat producer Mosa Meat, in November 2022 to commercialize Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef in Singapore.