# CCA Bio

> CCA Labs is all-in-one lab management software, built as the operating system for the cell culture lab. One platform holds the electronic lab notebook (ELN) for experiments and protocols, inventory and sample tracking, purchase orders and suppliers, funds and budgets, instrument data, and a tamper-evident audit trail. It is live: teams sign up at lab.cca.bio, from £110 per seat per month, and onboard themselves at zero cost by uploading their protocols and spreadsheets, which CCA's AI reads to set up the lab in minutes for them to review. Biotech incubators, CROs and organisations with several teams get a custom Enterprise package.

CCA Bio (Cell Culture Automation Ltd) is a Cambridge, UK company building the operating system for the cell culture lab. Every workflow, sample, and instrument event becomes machine-readable, audit-ready data, starting with the equipment researchers already have on the bench.

## Key facts
- Product: CCA Labs, all-in-one lab management software for cell culture and biotech labs (web app)
- What it combines: ELN, inventory and sample management (the work of a LIMS), procurement and purchase orders, lab budgets and funds, instrument data, audit trail
- Status: live and open for sign-up at https://lab.cca.bio
- Price: Teams from £110 per seat per month; Enterprise is a custom package with no public price
- Onboarding: zero-cost and self-serve; upload protocols and spreadsheets and the AI sets up the lab in minutes, for review
- Built for: cell culture labs, biotech start-ups, academic labs, biotech incubators, CROs and biotech R&D teams
- Compliance: tamper-evident, append-only audit trail and electronic signatures live today; built to support 21 CFR Part 11 and SOC 2 controls
- Hardware: Pebble environmental sensor (available), Tessera incubator microscope (early access), dALI automation platform (in development)
- Company: Cell Culture Automation Ltd, Cambridge, UK (Companies House 15268885)
- Contact: hello@cca.bio, or book a demo at https://calendar.app.google/r9w3PdDyUcHxwX1z9
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cca-bio

## What problem CCA Labs solves

Most labs run on a patchwork of tools: a paper or standalone ELN for experiments, spreadsheets for inventory and samples, separate spreadsheets or finance software for budgets and purchase orders, and no link between any of them. CCA Labs replaces that patchwork with one system, so the same platform that records an experiment also tracks the sample it used, the instrument that ran it, and the money it cost.

This matters most for labs that need to operate like a business, not just keep records: biotech start-ups, biotech incubators, CROs and research groups that must track project spend against grants or budgets, manage suppliers and purchase orders, and eventually bill or quote for work. CCA Labs is built so a lab can manage its science and its finances in the same place, which is what makes it practical for a lab to run as a commercially viable operation rather than a cost centre.

## Good fit when
- A lab wants one system for its notebook, stock, samples, orders and budgets instead of an ELN plus spreadsheets plus a separate ordering tool.
- Leadership needs every figure on the budget to trace down to the order, the vial and the experiment behind it.
- A facility runs several companies, teams or clients and needs each one's work kept apart while sharing equipment, stores and suppliers.
- Records have to stand up to an audit: who changed what, when, and why.
- The lab wants to start this week, without a long implementation project.

## What it covers, top to bottom
CCA Labs runs the whole organisation in one place, from the plan down to the bench:
- Leadership: programs, goals and budgets, with allocated, spent and reserved always in view.
- Operations: workflows, inventory, purchase orders and suppliers. Stock levels follow the work that uses them.
- Facility: every bench, cabinet and instrument on one floor plan, drawn to scale and live, with Pebble sensors watching the incubators.
- Lab: experiments and protocols in the ELN, bench tools, and samples tracked from vial to result.
- The record: sample lineage and a tamper-evident, append-only audit trail with electronic signatures.
- Growth (Enterprise): a workspace for each company, team or client, kept apart from the others, sharing the facility's equipment, stores and suppliers, with a console across the whole portfolio. Runs book shared instruments, only equipment in calibration takes bookings, and a CRO's clients can follow their own orders and deliverables remotely.

## Replaces / alternative to
CCA Labs is an all-in-one alternative to running these separately:
- Electronic lab notebooks (ELN): paper notebooks, or standalone ELN tools like Benchling, LabArchives, or SciNote, for designing and recording experiments and protocols.
- Lab inventory and sample management (LIMS): spreadsheets or dedicated inventory tools for reagents, samples, and stock levels.
- Lab procurement and supply ordering: tools like Quartzy, for purchase orders and supplier tracking.
- Lab budget and financial tracking: spreadsheets or general finance software, for fund and project budgets, allocated vs. spent vs. reserved.
- Instrument and hardware data capture: manual transcription from lab equipment, replaced with direct telemetry and imaging from CCA hardware (Pebble, Tessera) alongside the equipment a lab already owns.

## Products

### CCA Labs (https://lab.cca.bio)
The core software platform: an ELN plus experiments and protocols, sample and inventory tracking, the lab calendar, purchase orders and procurement, fund and project budget management, roles and permissions, and a tamper-evident audit trail. CCA Labs is live today. Teams can create their lab at lab.cca.bio. Biotech incubators, CROs and larger organisations can request a custom Enterprise package.

### Pebble
IoT telemetry sensor for cell culture environments, the size of a plate. Monitors CO₂, O₂, temperature and humidity in real time, with thresholds and alarms. Available today.

### Tessera
Incubator-integrated microscope with automated confluence imaging. Currently in early access.

### dALI
Full closed-loop cell culture automation platform. In development.

## Onboarding
Onboarding costs nothing and the customer does it themselves. A team uploads its existing documents, such as protocols and inventory spreadsheets. CCA's AI reads them and drafts the workflows and inventory in minutes, and the team reviews everything before it is saved. CCA does not move data in on the customer's behalf. Enterprise customers also get assisted onboarding for each team and workspace.

## Pricing
- **Teams**: From £110 / seat / month. Self sign-on for biotech labs and academic groups: ELN and experiments, protocols, inventory, samples, calendar, funds, budgets, purchase orders, roles and permissions, audit trail. Zero-cost onboarding: upload documents and the AI sets up the lab.
- **Enterprise**: Custom package for biotech incubators, CROs and organisations running several teams, built around workspaces and management needs. No public price. Includes assisted onboarding.
- **Ecosystem access**: Separate request form for academic researchers and builders.

## Compliance
The tamper-evident, append-only audit trail and electronic signatures are live today. CCA Labs is built to support 21 CFR Part 11 and SOC 2 controls, and formal certification is on the roadmap. Customers own their data and can export it at any time.

## Company
- Legal name: Cell Culture Automation Ltd, registered in England and Wales (Company No. 15268885)
- Based at: St John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, United Kingdom
- Team: Dr. Salavat Magazov (CEO, co-founder), Masum Ahmed (CTO, co-founder), Evgeniia Kasumova (Director of Business Development), Prof. Laura M. Machesky (Scientific Advisor), Roman Golyshkov (Industrial Designer)
- Focus: cell culture labs in academia, biotech start-ups, biotech incubators, CROs and pharma R&D
- Product stage: CCA Labs is live (Teams and Enterprise); Pebble available; Tessera early access; dALI in development

## Frequently asked
**What is CCA Labs?** All-in-one lab management software, built as the operating system for the cell culture lab. It runs the whole organisation in one place, from programs and budgets down to the experiment at the bench, and turns every workflow, sample and instrument event into structured, audit-ready data.
**Is CCA Labs an ELN or a LIMS?** Both, in one system. It includes a full electronic lab notebook for designing and recording experiments and protocols, the sample and inventory tracking a LIMS would handle, and the budget, purchasing and hardware layers neither usually covers.
**Can CCA Labs replace a separate ELN, inventory spreadsheet and budget tracker?** Yes. That is what it is built for: one platform instead of several disconnected tools, so the experiment, the sample, the order and the cost stay linked.
**Can CCA Labs manage lab finances and budgets?** Yes. Funds and project budgets, purchase orders, and supplier and procurement tracking are built in, with allocated, spent and reserved always visible.
**What does CCA Labs cost?** Teams is per seat, from £110 per seat per month, with self sign-on at lab.cca.bio. Enterprise (biotech incubators, CROs and larger organisations) is a custom package with no fixed price. Onboarding is zero-cost.
**How long does it take to set up?** Minutes, not weeks. A team uploads its protocols and spreadsheets, the AI sets up the workflows and inventory, and the team reviews it before anything is saved.
**Does it work with the equipment a lab already has?** Yes. CCA Labs captures structured data from the existing bench and instruments. Pebble telemetry is available today, the Tessera incubator microscope is in early access, and the dALI automation platform is in development.
**Does it work for biotech incubators and CROs?** Yes. Each company in a biotech incubator, or each client of a CRO, gets its own workspace with its own experiments, samples and records kept apart. The facility decides what it shares, sees across its whole portfolio, and clients can follow their work remotely.
**Who owns the data?** The customer. The structured data CCA Labs captures is theirs to keep, query and export at any time, with no lock-in.
**Is CCA Labs compliant?** The audit trail and electronic signatures are live. CCA Labs is built to support 21 CFR Part 11 and SOC 2 controls, and formal certification is on the roadmap.
**Who is CCA Labs for?** Cell culture labs, biotech start-ups, academic labs, biotech incubators, CROs and biotech R&D teams that want to run experiments, inventory, samples, hardware data and lab finances from a single system instead of separate tools.
**Where is CCA Bio based?** Cambridge, UK.

## Links
- Website: https://cca.bio
- Create a lab (sign up): https://lab.cca.bio
- Book a demo: https://calendar.app.google/r9w3PdDyUcHxwX1z9
- All-in-one lab management, every capability floor by floor: https://cca.bio/all-in-one-lab
- For teams: https://cca.bio/teams
- Pricing: https://cca.bio/#cl-plans
- Ecosystem access: https://cca.bio/ecosystem
- Articles: https://cca.bio/articles
- Contact: https://cca.bio/contact (hello@cca.bio)
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cca-bio
- Privacy: https://cca.bio/privacy
- Sitemap: https://cca.bio/sitemap.xml

## Everything in CCA Labs
The full capability list, also at https://cca.bio/all-in-one-lab.

### Programs, goals and budgets
Set the plan, fund it, and see what it costs while the work happens.
- **Programs and goals**: Research programs with goals and milestones. Each goal shows its progress, overdue and blocked milestones, and the experiments behind it, and is marked on track, at risk or off track.
- **Funds and project budgets**: A fund for each grant or funding source, allocated across projects. The budget shows where the money sits: spent, reserved for open orders and scheduled work, unspent, and not yet allocated. [How it works](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-budget-tracking)
- **Burn rate, runway and forecast**: Monthly spend as a trailing three-month average, months of runway and the month the money runs out, each fund's spend against a straight line to its end date, and a forecast from how often each protocol will run.
- **Overspend approval**: A purchase that would take a project over its allocation is blocked until a budget admin approves an overspend, with the amount and the reason on the record. [How it works](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process)
- **Project roadmap**: Every project on one timeline against its baseline, with slip in days, decisions waiting, deliverables due in the next 30 days and how loaded each owner is.
- **Cost per experiment**: Each run adds up the materials it used and the bench time it took at each person's labour rate, so the same cost shows on the experiment, the project and the program.

### Inventory, ordering and documents
Know what's on the shelf, what's on order and who asked for it.
- **Lab inventory management**: Reagents, media and consumables tracked by lot, each with its quantity, expiry, QC release and shelf. Stock is reserved when an experiment is scheduled, drawn down first-expiry-first-out when a step starts, and flagged when it falls to the reorder level. [How it works](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-inventory-management)
- **Procurement and purchase orders**: Requests queue up, become one purchase order per supplier against a project budget, and are received line by line. Receiving a line creates the inventory lot and posts the cost. [How it works](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process)
- **Supplier tracking**: Supplier profiles with account numbers and contacts, reused across inventory and orders, with catalogue numbers, average cost and the lead time each supplier actually delivers in.
- **Lab calendar**: Experiments, instrument bookings and deadlines on one calendar, for you or the whole lab, with a feed for your own calendar app.
- **Documents and SOPs**: SOPs and protocols written in a shared editor, several people at once, with version history, tags and a release state.

### Electronic lab notebook and protocols
Design a protocol once, run it step by step, and keep the record as you go.
- **Protocol and workflow builder**: Build protocols as step-by-step workflows, keep every version and compare two side by side. Each workflow shows what a run costs, and every experiment records the version it ran.
- **Experiments**: Run a protocol as an experiment, step by step, recording what was done, what was used and what came out. Each experiment is tied to a project and milestone and shows its cost against the estimate.
- **Batch records**: The full record of each run, with timestamped steps, data entries and materials, finalised and signed as a locked snapshot.
- **Bench board**: The team's tasks for today, this week and later, with overdue and blocked work flagged and each task linked to the SOP, order, sample or run it is about.
- **Bench calculators**: Dilution and serial dilution, mass and molarity, mastermix, DNA and RNA quantification, cell counting, seeding density and doubling time, plate assay standard curves, assay statistics, qPCR ΔΔCt, protein parameters, and finance tools from margin and VAT to runway and rNPV.

### Sample tracking and cell line management
Every vial has a place, a history and a label you can scan.
- **Sample tracking**: Samples with an ID, form, amount, QC assays, expiry and freeze-thaw limit, filed on a shelf in the virtual lab and split into aliquots. [How it works](https://cca.bio/articles/sample-tracking-vial-to-result)
- **Labels and QR scanning**: Print tube labels and scan the QR code to open the sample or stock lot at the bench. [How it works](https://cca.bio/articles/sample-tracking-vial-to-result)
- **Chain of custody**: Who received, moved, handed over, returned or destroyed each sample, when, and on whose authority.
- **Corrections on the record**: A wrong identity or form is corrected with the reason recorded, never overwritten, so the history shows what was believed and when.
- **Cell line registry**: Every cell line with its passage number, passage policy and banks.
- **Cell line identity testing**: Each authentication result recorded against the material that was tested and the reference it was judged against.
- **Sample lineage**: Trace any result back through the samples, reagents, instruments and people that produced it.

### Instruments, bookings and monitoring
The whole lab on one floor plan, with the equipment in it booked, maintained and watched.
- **Virtual lab**: Every room, bench, cabinet and instrument on one floor plan drawn to scale, with a version history of the layout. Samples and stock are filed on its shelves.
- **Instrument booking**: Book instruments by hand, or let an experiment book the incubator or hood its steps need when it is scheduled.
- **Equipment calibration and maintenance**: Calibration, qualification and service tracked for each instrument. When a check lapses, the instrument stops taking bookings until it is back in order.
- **Instrument utilisation**: Booked hours, idle capacity and bookings for each instrument.
- **Environmental monitoring**: Pebble sensors report CO₂, O₂, temperature and humidity from incubators and storage in real time, with thresholds and alarms.
- **Sample storage conditions**: Each sample shows the live conditions of the place it is stored, from the sensor watching it.

### Audit trail, signatures and your data
Every change on the record, and the data yours to take anywhere.
- **Audit trail**: An append-only, server-timestamped history on every regulated record: who changed what, when and why.
- **Electronic signatures**: Signatures tied to the signer's identity, with a fresh sign-in at each signature and a stated meaning: authored, reviewed, approved or witnessed. The owner decides which actions need one.
- **Roles and permissions**: Owner, Admin, Member and Viewer roles, permissions for each part of the lab, and access limited to the programs a person works on.
- **Multi-factor authentication**: A second step at sign-in, which the organisation can require for everyone.
- **Data capture templates**: Typed, versioned templates for the data your experiments record, in a spreadsheet grid with Excel-compatible formulas and Excel import and export.
- **API and export**: Read-only API keys for pulling experiment, sample and inventory data into notebooks, dashboards or your own tools, and CSV and Excel export. The data is yours, with no lock-in.

### Workspaces, clients and shared facilities
Many companies or clients on one system, each kept apart, with the facility running the shared parts. Part of the Enterprise package.
- **Workspaces**: A workspace for each company, team or client, with its own experiments, samples and records kept apart from everyone else.
- **Management console**: The whole portfolio in one place: workspaces, access, shared equipment, shared inventory, orders and reports.
- **Shared equipment and stores**: The facility decides what it shares, such as instruments, stores, suppliers and floor plans, pooled or kept separate.
- **Charging for shared resources**: Time on shared instruments and shared costs charged to the company that used them.
- **Customers, quotes and sales orders**: Customers, sales orders, service contracts and study requests for labs that do work for clients.
- **Facility issue reports**: Resident companies and clients report an equipment fault or a service request to the facility, with the room, a photo and whether anyone was hurt. Staff assign it, reply and resolve it, and a repair goes on the instrument's service history.
- **Client portal**: Clients request work, follow their orders and receive deliverables with an evidence pack, and see nothing else in the building.

### Set up in minutes
Onboarding costs nothing, and you do it yourself.
- **AI onboarding**: Upload your protocols and spreadsheets. The AI reads them and drafts your workflows and inventory in minutes, and you review everything before it is saved.
- **Self sign-on**: Create a lab at lab.cca.bio and start the same day. Teams is from £110 per seat per month.

## Articles
Long-form writing from the CCA team on running a cell culture lab on structured data. Index: https://cca.bio/articles

- [How do you track a lab sample from the vial to the result?](https://cca.bio/articles/sample-tracking-vial-to-result) - What a sample record needs, from labels and storage to custody, corrections and lineage, following 40 vials of a HEK293 working cell bank. Published 2026-09-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/sample-tracking-vial-to-result.md
- [What should a purchase order process look like in a research lab?](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process) - What a lab purchase order needs, the stages it moves through, and how to handle a partial delivery, following one £688.10 order for a cell bank. Published 2026-09-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process.md
- [How should a lab manage its reagent and consumable inventory?](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-inventory-management) - Why 50 vials on the shelf can be low stock: track by lot, keep on hand, reserved and available apart, use the first to expire, and reorder on available. Published 2026-09-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/lab-inventory-management.md
- [How do you track a lab budget across several grants and projects?](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-budget-tracking) - The four numbers a lab budget needs, how to work out runway, and when an order counts as spent, following one £2,500 cell bank project. Published 2026-09-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/lab-budget-tracking.md
- [What is all-in-one lab management software, and what should it cover?](https://cca.bio/articles/all-in-one-lab-management-software) - What all-in-one lab software should cover, how it compares with an ELN, a LIMS and spreadsheets, and how to test it before you buy. Published 2026-09-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/all-in-one-lab-management-software.md
- [Fluorescence modelling: choosing filters for a multichannel microscope](https://cca.bio/articles/fluorescence-filter-modelling) - Picking excitation filters, dichroic mirrors and emission filters means working out how much light survives each element. Here is the spectral maths, the open source app we built to do it, and the filter cube we designed around the answer. Published 2026-08-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/fluorescence-filter-modelling.md
- [ELN vs LIMS: which one does a cell culture lab actually need?](https://cca.bio/articles/eln-vs-lims-cell-culture-lab) - An ELN records what you did and a LIMS tracks what you have. A cell culture lab needs both, and they need to be connected. Here is how they differ and what to look for. Published 2026-07-27. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/eln-vs-lims-cell-culture-lab.md
- [Why the freezer spreadsheet always drifts](https://cca.bio/articles/freezer-inventory-spreadsheet-fails) - Every lab starts with a freezer spreadsheet, and it works until the freezer gets busy. Here is why it drifts out of step with what is actually in the box, and what to do about it. Published 2026-07-20. Markdown: https://cca.bio/articles/freezer-inventory-spreadsheet-fails.md

## Machine-readable

- Full text of every article in one file: https://cca.bio/llms-full.txt
- Any article as markdown: append .md to its URL
- RSS feed: https://cca.bio/articles/rss.xml
- Sitemap: https://cca.bio/sitemap.xml