Research-Grade Cell Banking & Cryogenic Storage
Banking a line you already have — expand, freeze, test and store — at published institutional rates, priced per vial rather than per programme.
| Category | Contract Cell Culture & Manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Unit | One bank (a defined vial count at a defined cell number per vial), plus a per-vial-per-month storage rate |
| Lead time | 4-6 weeks for expansion and banking (Curi Bio published phase duration); add the release panel turnaround, where sterility incubations impose a hard 14-day minimum |
| Pricing | Published list price |
| Provenance | Partner manufactured |
| Data current | 2026-09-01 |
Description
The service most labs need and fewest cost correctly: taking a line you already own, expanding it, freezing it into a documented bank and keeping it somewhere with an alarm on it. Freezing vials is not the expensive part; proving what is in them is, and the price scales with the release panel rather than the vial count. This is a distinct purchase from line creation and it is priced completely differently — an institutional core will bank 8 to 12 vials of a line you supply for roughly the cost of a single vial from a commercial whole-programme provider. What the buyer has to decide is which of three products they are actually buying: a research-use bank of 10 to 50 vials for internal experimental use with identity, mycoplasma, viability and count; a master cell bank of 100 to 300 vials that is never used directly and carries a full panel including sterility, endotoxin, adventitious agents and karyology; or a working cell bank expanded from one MCB vial so the master is preserved. We also make the storage comparison honest: an institutional per-vial-per-month rate and a commercial annual contract are not the same service, and the gap is mostly liability — monitoring, alarm response and disaster recovery — rather than nitrogen. The published turnaround anchor for expansion and banking is 4 to 6 weeks; if a quote promises materially less, ask which step was removed.
Why this is hard to buy today
Karyotype is between half and two-thirds of a research bank release panel at $917.73 to $1,307, so it is the assay that gets cut when budgets tighten — which is defensible for a working stock you can re-derive and indefensible for a master bank, whose entire purpose is that everything downstream inherits its genomic state.
Price evidence
Published institutional rate cards, captured 2026-09-01. Gates Center Stem Cell Biobank and Disease Modeling Core: expand and freeze iPSCs delivering 8-12 vials, $539.54 per service (roughly $45-$67 per vial banked); thaw iPSCs into two wells of a 6-well plate $274.56; vial storage $0.07 per vial per month, which is $1,680 for 200 vials over ten years. Salk Institute Stem Cell Core, rates effective 2025-07-01: biobanking of vials $70 per vial external non-profit / $88 external for-profit; iPSC frozen vial $619 external non-profit / $774 external for-profit. Release testing is priced separately and a minimally credible research iPSC bank panel comes to $1,779.53 at Gates Center published rates (STR $250.00 + mycoplasma $134.27 + G-band karyotype $917.73 + pluripotency qPCR $477.53), of which karyotype is 52 percent. GMP master cell banking is quote only at every provider surveyed, with no published bands, and we do not estimate one. Institutional rates are available only to eligible users and are a floor rather than a market price.
These are supplier list prices we located and recorded, not a quotation from Wetware World. Your price depends on quantity, specification and freight, and is only binding once issued in writing.
What you must specify
A quote cannot be produced without these. Anything you leave open, a supplier will assume — usually expensively.
| # | Parameter |
|---|---|
| 01 | Number of vials and cells per vial — a number, not 'a bank' |
| 02 | Bank type: research use only, master cell bank, or working cell bank |
| 03 | Passage number at freeze, and the passage at which incoming material will arrive |
| 04 | Exact release test panel, assay by assay, with the method for each |
| 05 | Grade: RUO, research-grade with GMP documentation, or full GMP |
| 06 | Cryoprotectant formulation and controlled-rate freezing profile |
| 07 | Who owns the resulting bank, and whether the provider retains any right to distribute it |
| 08 | Storage: included for how long, at what rate afterwards, and what happens if you stop paying |
| 09 | Shipping and cold chain on release, including who pays for a failed shipment |
| 10 | Source-material licence, if the parent line came from a repository or vendor |
| 11 | Customer class eligibility for the rate being quoted |
Quality documentation
Typically available with this item. What actually ships is confirmed on the quotation, per supplier.
- Post-freeze viability and cell count on a test vial
- Mycoplasma testing
- STR identity profiling
- Certificate of analysis and full vial inventory with freeze date and passage
- Karyotype and pluripotency assays available as separately priced additions
Candidate suppliers
Organisations we have identified as capable. Listing does not imply a partnership, an endorsement, or that they have agreed to quote.
| Organisation | Basis for inclusion |
|---|---|
| Gates Center Stem Cell Biobank and Disease Modeling Core | Published price list captured 2026-09-01: expand and freeze iPSCs delivering 8-12 vials $539.54, thaw into two wells of a 6-well plate $274.56, vial storage $0.07 per vial per month, plus itemised release assays. |
| Salk Institute Stem Cell Core | Published rates effective 2025-07-01: biobanking $70 external non-profit / $88 external for-profit per vial; iPSC frozen vial $619 / $774. Captured 2026-09-01. |
| WiCell | Describes contract cell banking at research and cGMP grade alongside karyotype, FISH, STR, SNP, flow cytometry and mycoplasma services, and publishes no prices. Published karyotype turnaround 7-10 days. |
| Cook MyoSite | Publishes contract capability for muscle and adherent cell production, cryopreservation at any scale, custom media and phase-appropriate GMP manufacturing in a 3,470 sq ft ISO 7 / ISO 5 cleanroom, with no prices at all. |
Sources
- https://gates.cuanschutz.edu/who-we-are/core-facilities/stem-cell-biobank-and-disease-modeling-core/services-price-list
- https://salk.edu/science/core-facilities/stem-cell-core/scheduling-and-rates
- https://www.wicell.org/other-services/bank-cells/
- https://www.cookmyosite.com/contract-services
- https://www.curibio.com/curi-engine-services
doc WW-CC-61264 · rev 2026-09-01 · research use only · prices indicative and not binding until quoted in writing