Human & iPSC-Derived Cells →
Cryopreserved human primary and iPSC-derived cells sourced from catalog suppliers with public list prices. This is the most transparent corner of the market and the easiest thing for us to quote same-week.
9 categories · 26 sourceable entries
What we can source, and what it costs you in time
Every category below is backed by named candidate suppliers in the catalogue. Lead times are the ones suppliers state, not the ones we would prefer. Where the honest answer is that no supplier sells the thing, the row says so.
Capability matrix
One row per category. Read the quote-type column first — it tells you whether this is a purchase or a project.
| Category | Typical lead time | Formats | Typical QC | Quote type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human & iPSC-Derived Cells 7 entries | 1–3 weeks Subject to supplier lot availability; 2–6 weeks where an MTA must be executed first. | Cryopreserved vials, typically 1.0 × 10⁶ viable cells per vial. Normal, isogenic-control, disease-mutant and reporter lines. Shipped on dry ice. | Supplier certificate of analysis, post-thaw viability specification, identity and marker expression, sterility and mycoplasma status per supplier release testing. | Published list price Multiple suppliers publish per-vial prices, so this line can be quoted the same day a specification arrives. |
| Ready-to-Use 3D Tissue Models 5 entries | 1–8 weeks Gated by the supplier’s production calendar rather than by capacity. Reconstructed epidermis runs on a fixed weekly cadence. | Living tissue on culture inserts, kits of inserts, plates of microtissues, and perfused plates at 40 or 64 tissue models per plate. Fixed geometries only. | Lot-level release testing, histology specification, barrier integrity (TEER) where applicable, sterility checks on production media, pathogen screening, lot traceability. | By quotation No supplier in this category publishes a list price. Kit pricing is issued on enquiry. |
| Engineered Contractile Tissue 2 entries | Programme, not a lead time Expect a multi-week integration across a cell source, a mould, a casting laboratory and a force test. | Engineered muscle constructs delivered in their casting device, or co-culture models in a fixed device format. Geometry is the custom variable. | Contractile force against the stated acceptance criterion, viability at release, myotube alignment and sarcomeric organisation by imaging, sterility, per-unit dimensional record. | Custom RFQ only myriamed sells finished tissue off a catalogue, but with no published force specification. A construct specified to a force acceptance criterion is still an integration job. |
| Neural Cultures & Electrode Interfaces 1 entry | Programme, not a lead time Maturation alone is typically multi-week after cell delivery, and cannot be compressed. | MEA plates or well arrays delivered plated, matured and electrically interrogable, rather than as a frozen vial. | Cell certificates of analysis for neurons and astrocytes, pre-shipment electrophysiological activity record, viability at release, sterility and mycoplasma. | Custom RFQ only The cells are catalogue items; the plating, maturation and MEA readiness are contract work and must be contracted explicitly. |
| Culture Devices & Custom Microfabrication 3 entries | 1–4 weeks stocked · weeks to months custom Stocked casting devices ship quickly. Custom fabrication is design iteration plus tooling plus production. | PDMS and plastic culture hardware, casting devices and plates, microplate formats, stimulation lids and readout instruments. Custom microfabrication to 1 µm features. | Dimensional inspection against the agreed drawing, cleanroom production record, prototype iteration before batch release, manufacturer device QC, calibration documentation on instruments. | Published price and quotation Some casting devices carry public list prices. Custom fabrication and instruments are quoted. |
| Native & Primary Tissue to Spec 2 entries | 1–4 weeks Custom collections are gated by abattoir scheduling. Prospective human collection is considerably longer. | Animal and human tissue collected, processed and shipped to a written specification. Fresh on wet ice, or frozen at −20 to −80 °C on dry ice. Age grades and dimensions specifiable. | Certificate of analysis on request, documented origin, cold chain handling record, donor consent and IRB documentation, serology screening, chain-of-custody and collection-to-preservation time. | Published price and quotation Catalogue tissue items carry prices; custom collection is quoted. The cheap, fast answer whenever a passive mechanical part will do. |
| Contract Cell Culture & Manufacturing 2 entries | 4–8 weeks Based on published vendor phase durations for expansion, banking and differentiation. Longer with genome editing or 3D formation. | A cell bank at a defined vial count and cell number per vial, or a differentiation campaign yielding a defined cell number or tissue count. Your cells or theirs. | Cell count and viability, sterility (USP <71>), mycoplasma (NAT method equivalent to USP <63>), endotoxin (USP <85>), identity or lineage marker assay, batch manufacturing record. | By quotation Scoped as a programme with defined phases. Priced against cell number, passage count and documentation depth. |
| QC, Characterization & Acceptance Testing 3 entries | 1–6 weeks Sterility and bioburden incubations impose hard minimums that no amount of scheduling can shorten. Force phenotyping studies run 3–5 weeks. | One assay on one sample, a full release panel per lot, a staining and imaging workflow, or a phenotyping campaign across a defined number of tissues and conditions. | Test report against the stated method, compendial method citation where applicable, out-of-specification handling agreed in advance, per-unit force traces, instrument calibration record. | By quotation The independent test layer. Commissioned as a third party against a written acceptance criterion, including on material we did not source. |
| Cold Chain & Cryo Logistics 1 entry | Booked alongside the goods Live tissue is constrained to the supplier’s weekly ship day. This is a scheduling constraint, not a capacity one. | Validated cryogenic dry shippers, dry ice, and 4 °C wet-ice configurations. Temperature logging, customs documentation and permit handling. | Temperature excursion logging where contracted, chain-of-custody documentation, shipping and customs paperwork, receipt confirmation and condition-on-arrival record. | Custom RFQ only A solved problem in this industry, which we broker rather than reinvent. |
Lead times are the suppliers’ own stated figures as captured on 2026-09-01, restated onto a common basis. They are not a delivery promise from us and become binding only when a supplier issues a quotation in writing.
What each category actually is
Written for someone deciding which of these their problem belongs to.
Ready-to-Use 3D Tissue Models →
Living, metabolically active human tissue that arrives at your bench on a fixed production and cold-chain cadence. Fixed formats only — the vendors do not vary geometry, but they do vary media and tissue composition.
Engineered Contractile Tissue →
Force-generating, mechanically anchored muscle tissue built to a customer spec. Finished contractile tissue is now purchasable off a catalogue from myriamed at a published price, but with no force acceptance criterion; a construct specified to a force number is still an integration job across a cell source, a mould, a casting lab and a force test.
Neural Cultures & Electrode Interfaces →
Neurons delivered plated, matured, and electrically interrogable rather than as a frozen vial. The cells are catalog items; the plating, maturation and MEA readiness are contract work.
Culture Devices & Custom Microfabrication →
PDMS and plastic culture hardware — both off-the-shelf casting devices with public prices and ground-up custom microfabrication with cleanroom production.
Native & Primary Tissue to Spec →
Real animal and human tissue collected, processed, and shipped to a written specification. Cheap, fast, and the correct answer whenever a passive mechanical part will do the job.
Contract Cell Culture & Manufacturing →
Expansion, banking, cryopreservation, differentiation and process development run by GMP-capable cell manufacturers on your cells or theirs.
QC, Characterization & Acceptance Testing →
The independent test layer. Identity, sterility, viability, histology, imaging and functional force/electrophysiology phenotyping, run as a third party against a written acceptance criterion.
Cold Chain & Cryo Logistics →
Getting living or frozen material from a production floor to a stranger's bench intact. A solved problem in this industry and one we broker rather than reinvent.
The shape of this market
Three findings from our own supplier survey that explain why some categories quote in a day and others quote as a programme.
Static tissue is a shipped product. Contractile tissue is not.
Reconstructed epithelium, barrier models and spheroids arrive as finished living goods on a production cadence. Contractile muscle is sold exclusively as empty plasticware into which you cast your own cells. Nobody has crossed between the two.
Wetware World supply landscape survey, 2026-09-01
The cold chain is already solved by other people.
Living, metabolically active human tissue is routinely produced in lots and mailed at 4 °C on medium-supplemented agarose gels against a fixed weekly cadence, with a four-day shelf life including transit. This is a twenty-year-old commercial category, not a research risk.
MatTek EpiDerm technical specifications, 2025
Fragmentation is the reason a broker exists.
The pieces of a single engineered component — cells, mould, casting, stimulation, QC, shipping — sit in roughly six separate organisations, and none of them integrate. Categories where one supplier holds the whole job quote in days. Categories that span four suppliers quote in weeks.
Wetware World supply landscape survey, 2026-09-01
Which category is yours
If you pick the wrong one, we will move it. Nothing is blocked by choosing badly.
| If your requirement sounds like this | Start here | Because |
|---|---|---|
| “I need a working population of a specific human cell type, frozen.” | Human and iPSC-derived cells | The most transparent corner of the market, with published per-vial prices. |
| “I need human tissue that is alive when it arrives and that I do not have to build.” | Ready-to-use 3D tissue models | Finished living goods exist here, but only in the vendors’ fixed formats. |
| “It has to pull on something, and I have a force number.” | Engineered contractile tissue | No catalogue item exists. This is an integration, and it is quoted as one. |
| “I need to record spikes from it on arrival.” | Neural cultures and electrode interfaces | Cells are catalogue items; plating, maturation and MEA readiness are contract work. |
| “I need a plate, a chip, or a mould that does not exist yet.” | Culture devices and microfabrication | Off-the-shelf devices carry public prices; bespoke geometry is a cleanroom project. |
| “A passive mechanical part would do — it does not need to be engineered.” | Native and primary tissue to spec | Frequently the correct and much cheaper answer, and routinely collected to a written spec. |
| “I have the cells. I need someone to grow, bank or differentiate them.” | Contract culture and manufacturing | Priced as a phased programme against cell number and documentation depth. |
| “I need someone independent to tell me whether this batch is acceptable.” | QC and characterisation | Commissioned as a third party, including on material we did not source. |
| “The material exists. Getting it here intact is the problem.” | Cold chain and cryo logistics | Brokered against validated shipping configurations and courier windows. |
| “I genuinely do not know what this is called.” | Send it anyway | Describing the problem is enough. Naming the category is our job, not yours. |
Nine categories, one specification format
Whichever row your requirement belongs to, the intake is the same: what it is, how it must arrive, what makes a batch acceptable, and which documents travel with it.