By Jacob Bunge 

German drugmaker Merck KGaA and a top European meat processor are backing a startup producing beef from cattle cells, ramping up a race to transform the global meat industry with cell-culture technology.

The $8.8 million investment in Netherlands-based Mosa Meat by Merck's venture investing unit and Basel, Switzerland-based Bell Food Group fuels a continuing effort to fulfill growing global demand for meat via a process that developers say requires a fraction of the resources used in traditional livestock and poultry production.

Cell-culture meat makers have yet to begin selling any of their products. But the emerging technology has drawn investments from major U.S. meat processors like Cargill Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc. It also is raising complaints among cattle ranchers and hog farmers, some of whom regard it as a lab-developed imitation of traditional hamburgers and pork.

Mosa is led by Mark Post, a Maastricht University physiologist who unveiled the world's first lab-grown burger in 2013, and Peter Verstrate, a food technician at the university. Mr. Post's prototype burger cost $330,000 to develop, but the project encouraged Mr. Post to form Mosa, which previously received funding from Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin.

"We've done a lot of work in scaling up the cell culture... to something that can be used on an industrial scale," said Mr. Post.

Cell-culture meat makers begin by isolating livestock or poultry cells that have the capacity to renew themselves, and place them into room-size bioreactor tanks, similar to fermenters. The cells are fed oxygen and nutrients like sugar and minerals, and can grow into skeletal muscle that can be harvested within a few weeks. That tissue can then be formed into meatballs or chicken strips.

Regulatory oversight of meat grown from animal cells is still being assessed, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both discussing how the technology may be overseen. Some livestock groups have called for regulations restricting the word "meat" to conventionally raised and slaughtered livestock.

Some promoters of the technology see it replacing significant portions of the existing meat industry over time. Meat companies have billed it as an additional way to provide beef, pork or chicken to an expanding and more affluent world population that is expected to strain the existing agricultural system.

The investment led by Merck's M Ventures unit represents its first in the food industry, said Alexander Hoffmann, a principal at the firm. Beyond the funding, Merck could provide Mosa with the drug and chemical maker's own expertise in cell-culture technology. "What we intend to do is at least open doors to our parent company," Mr. Hoffmann said.

Mosa is looking at sites to build a pilot production plant, Mr. Post said, with the goal of supplying its beef products to European restaurants in 2021 at around $10 per burger.

Write to Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 16, 2018 17:40 ET (21:40 GMT)

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