Existing feeder-free culture media can contain more than 20 interactive ingredients, many of which, such as bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lipids, are highly uncharacterized and vary significantly from lot to lot. Made in partnership with Cellular Dynamics International, Essential 8™ medium overcomes this barrier. BSA and other undesirable components have been removed from the media and the number of ingredients has been reduced to just eight elements required to support efficient growth, eliminate variability, and enable large-scale production of human iPS cells.