Human iPSC-derived cortical neurons: what is actually available

The short answer: you can buy human iPSC-derived cortical neurons today from at least eight named suppliers, most with a published price, and delivery is normally one to three weeks. The hard part is not availability. It is that no two suppliers describe the same product the same way, so the comparison you think you are making is usually not the comparison you are actually making.

Two suppliers quoting “one million cortical neurons, greater than 90 percent pure” can differ in what a cell is counted as, which markers the purity refers to, whether media is included, and whether you are permitted to use the result in anything commercial. Those four differences move the delivered cost by more than the headline price does.

Availability table

Note what that table shows and what it does not. Three suppliers publish a numeric purity specification. The rest publish characterisation data without a release threshold. That is not a quality judgement — a supplier with rich immunocytochemistry and no headline percentage may be giving you more information than one with a percentage and nothing else — but if your protocol or your grant requires a stated purity, the field narrows immediately.

The four questions that decide the real price

1. What is a cell here

Three counting conventions circulate, and they are not interchangeable:

• Total cells at freeze — the count before cryopreservation losses.
• Viable cells post-thaw — what you can actually plate.
• Cells guaranteed to attach — rarest and most honest.

bit.bio and FUJIFILM CDI both state viable cells explicitly. Others state a cell number without naming the convention. Ask. It is a question every supplier answers readily once asked directly, and a vendor quoting the first convention against a vendor quoting the second looks cheaper while delivering less.

The FUJIFILM CDI listing is worth a second look for a different reason: the distributor listing states ≥6.0 × 10⁶ viable cells per vial. If that holds for the SKU you are quoted, the per-million arithmetic changes completely relative to a one-million vial at a similar headline price. Confirm the vial content on your specific quote rather than assuming from the product family.

2. Is media included, and is it optional

It is frequently not optional. FUJIFILM CDI prices “cells only” and “kit” separately — a roughly $100 difference on a $616 item. bit.bio prices a 3-vial pack at $999 without media and $2,046 with three media kits, so media is very nearly as expensive as the cells. Axol bundles cells, media, supplements and coating into a single kit SKU, which makes their headline number look high next to a bare vial and is not a like-for-like comparison at all.

If the datasheet performance was measured in the supplier’s own media, buying the cells without the media means you are buying a product that has not been characterised in the condition you will run it.

3. Which markers does the purity refer to

“Greater than 90 percent pure” is meaningless without the denominator and the assay. Two real examples from the table:

• bit.bio states >80% expression of the glutamate transporter genes VGLUT1 and VGLUT2, and separately that the population contains no inhibitory neurons. That is a subtype-identity claim measured by gene expression.
• FUJIFILM CDI states ≥90% pure glutamatergic, supported by flow cytometry, and shows synaptophysin and Tuj-1 staining plus single-cell gene expression.

Those are both credible and they are not the same measurement. A flow cytometry percentage against a pan-neuronal marker answers “are these neurons”. An RT-qPCR or single-cell measure against a subtype transporter answers “are these the right neurons”. If you need both, ask for both, in writing, on the certificate of analysis.

4. What are you allowed to do with the result

This is the field that does not appear on any price list and the one that gates commercial work.

Every product in the table above is research use only as sold. The variation is in how explicitly the supplier constrains what happens next:

• STEMCELL Technologies publishes the most explicit restriction we found: the cells and their derivatives may not be used for monetisation or commercialisation, including performing services or supplying products for consideration, with screening permitted only for target discovery, target validation or assay development where the results are not further commercialised. A further licence may be obtainable.
• FUJIFILM CDI maintains a product restrictions policy limiting the use of some SKUs to provide services to third parties, and states that its listed prices are valid in the US and Europe only, with separate pricing for China, South Korea and Japan.
• bit.bio states plainly that ioCells are for research use only.

For a lab buying two vials for an experiment, this is a formality. For anyone building a product, a service business or a therapeutic on top of these cells, it is the gating cost and it is negotiated separately from the purchase. Raise it at the quote stage, not after the first successful experiment.

Volume pricing is real and it is large

The biggest single lever on cost per million is pack size, not vendor choice.

• BrainXell’s own pricing falls from $650 per million at a 1M vial to $350 per million at a 5M vial — a 46 percent reduction inside one supplier.
• bit.bio publishes an explicit volume ladder: 1–9 packs at standard price, 10–33 packs with an automatic 10 percent discount, and above 34 packs by quote. They also publish academic pricing of 999 in dollars, euros or pounds for any 3-vial pack of any ioCells combination, available year-round.

If you are comparing two suppliers at different vial sizes, you are comparing pack sizes rather than suppliers, and the larger pack usually wins regardless of who sells it. Normalise first.

Disease lines, isogenic controls and reporters

Standard wild-type cortical neurons are the cheap, available end of this market. The premium sits in three places:

Disease genotypes. bit.bio’s disease glutamatergic lines are priced above wild type in bands — APOE 4/4, GBA and PSEN1 variants at $1,299 per 3-vial pack without media, MAPT tauopathy lines at $1,759. Whether that premium is worth paying depends entirely on whether the specific variant is one you would otherwise have to engineer yourself, in which case it is inexpensive.

Isogenic controls. These are priced and stocked separately by every supplier we checked. iXCells, for example, prices isogenic control motor neuron lines back at the normal-line level while the homozygous mutants sit two to three times higher. The practical failure mode is ordering the mutant, starting work, then discovering the matched control is on a different lot schedule. Reserve both at once or do not reserve either.

Reporters and CRISPR-ready backgrounds. bit.bio lists GFP, CRISPRi-ready, CRISPRa-ready and CRISPRko-ready glutamatergic neurons at the same $999 per 3-vial pack as wild type without media, which makes the engineered background effectively free relative to the base product. That is unusual and worth knowing before anyone budgets for in-house line engineering.

Practical specification checklist

Send this to every supplier and the answers become comparable:

• Subtype: glutamatergic, GABAergic, mixed cortical, or a defined ratio.
• Genotype: wild type, named mutation, and whether a matched isogenic control is required.
• Reporter requirement: none, GFP, GCaMP, or CRISPR-ready background.
• Cell count and the counting convention it is stated in.
• Number of vials, and whether volume tiers apply.
• Media and coating: included, or customer supplied.
• Purity specification and the markers and assay it is measured against.
• Post-thaw viability specification and the method used to measure it.
• Intended downstream format: plate, coverslip, MEA plate, 3D construct.
• Whether the supplier publishes raw electrophysiology data, if network activity matters.
• Licence terms attaching to derivatives.
• Required delivery date and lot reservation.

Where to go next

If you want the prices normalised to a single unit, the price-per-million analysis does that arithmetic with the counting conventions stated. If you want to choose a supplier rather than a product, the directory and the head-to-head comparison cover more columns of verified data. If the cells are going onto an electrode array, read MEA-ready neurons first — the phrase is not a defined term and the checks that matter are not on the product page.

We hold these figures because we maintain them, not because we resell any particular supplier. Send us a specification and we will source current quotes against it and normalise them so the comparison is real.