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A Newcastle biotech company at the forefront of sustainable meat production has collapsed into administration with the loss of nine jobs.

Cellularevolution Ltd - known as CellRev - was spun out of Newcastle University in 2018 and aimed to address production challenges in the "clean meat" sector and in producing tissues for clinical trials. The start-up had set out to help change future meat consumption habits and to speed up the development of life-saving treatments.

The company was founded after a breakthrough discovery that provided the basis for its technology and pioneered what it called novel enzymatic processes that overcame longstanding bottlenecks in bioprocessing. Its work prompted interest from those involved in innovative cell and gene therapies, and in cultured meat - with global production of cells expected to ramp up over the next decade.

In 2021, the firm raised seed funding of of £1.2m when CPT Capital - an early investor in leading cultivated meat producers - joined existing investors Northstar Ventures and the Northern Accelerator Seed Investment Fund (NASIF), which invests on behalf of the North East's universities. The following year the firm raised a further £1.75m from a group of investors led by Happiness Capital and including venture capital firm Allusion One.

In 2023 CellRev raised £1.4m including £1.05m in an investment led by the North East Innovation Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, alongside Happiness Capital and CPT Capital. It also secured £330,000 of grant funding from Innovate º£½ÇÊÓƵ and its Future Economy Investor Partnership programme.

Around the same time, CellRev joined forces with BSF Enterprise - the London Stock Exchange-listed portfolio of tissue engineering businesses - to form Cultivated Meat Technologies Limited. The joint venture hoped to deliver a platform for manufacturing lab-grown meat in a scalable and cost-competitive way.

CMT set out to secure licencing agreements with established meat-producers who could provide production knowledge, capital and supply chain relationships. Initially, it had worked on creating showcase meat fillets to prove its processes.

But in late 2024, BSF announced to investors that it was abandoning the joint venture with CellRev and would look at different ways to establish cultivate meat products with major º£½ÇÊÓƵ and European food processors. CMT is still 100% owned by BSF.

Earlier this month, administrators from business advisory firm Armstrong Watson were appointed to Helix-based CellRev. A spokesperson for Armstrong Watson said: “Ed Connell and Mike Kienlen were appointed joint administrators of Cellularevolution Limited (the company) on August 12, 2025 and now manage the business, affairs and assets of the company. The joint administrators contract as agents of the company only and without personal liability.

"Ed Connell and Mike Kienlen are authorised to act by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Both are bound by the Insolvency Code of Ethics. Following their appointment, the joint administrators have made all staff redundant and are working with their agents, Hilco Valuation Services in relation to realising the assets of the company."