As of November 30, 2025, there isn’t enough elapsed time or clear outcome to judge Friedberg’s full prediction.

His claim had two parts:

1. Timing and capital needs: that recombinant protein (precision fermentation) and cultivated meat firms would need several more years beyond 2023 and several billion dollars more.
2. Ultimate outcome: that they would ultimately succeed in making these technologies work at commercially viable, cost‑competitive scales.

Status of cultivated (lab‑grown) meat (cellular agriculture)
– Multiple analyses in 2024–2025 state that cultivated meat is still years from commercial viability, with products confined to pilot runs and a few high‑end restaurants, not mass retail. Costs remain many multiples higher than conventional meat, and industry observers explicitly say commercial‑scale production is still “years away.” (sezarroverseas.com)
– Recent cost estimates put cultivated meat at roughly $25–100+ per kg versus a few dollars per kg for conventional meat, indicating it is not yet cost‑competitive. (quickmarketpitch.com)
– Companies like UPSIDE Foods have faced layoffs and have paused or downsized large‑scale plant plans, underscoring that the technology is still in a difficult, capital‑intensive scale‑up phase rather than having already “arrived.” (newtechfoods.com)
These facts are consistent with Friedberg’s “several more years” and “several billion dollars” framing, but they do not yet show whether the industry will reach true cost‑competitive scale.

Status of recombinant proteins via precision fermentation
– Precision‑fermented proteins (e.g., dairy proteins) are commercially produced but, on average, still cost significantly more than conventional animal proteins: estimates for 2024 put many precision‑fermentation proteins at $20–100+ per kg, compared to $3–5 per kg for dairy proteins. (foodwrite.co.uk)
– Market and consulting reports explicitly say precision‑fermentation proteins are not yet broadly cost‑competitive, but project cost parity in the late 2020s (around 2027–2030) if large‑scale facilities and process improvements are built—i.e., still “several more years” away. (news.sustainability-directory.com)
– Investment data show billions of dollars continuing to flow into precision fermentation and cultivated meat between 2023 and 2025, with alternative protein investments around $3.2B in 2024–2025 alone and multiple single rounds in the hundreds of millions (e.g., Perfect Day, UPSIDE, GOOD Meat), supporting his point that multi‑billion‑dollar funding is required. (quickmarketpitch.com)

Why the verdict is “inconclusive”
– Only about 2½ years have passed since April 2023; Friedberg spoke of “several more years,” which most reasonably implies a longer horizon (roughly the later 2020s or beyond).
– The core falsifiable part—that these technologies will ultimately succeed in achieving commercially viable, cost‑competitive scale—concerns an outcome that industry analyses themselves place mostly in the future (late 2020s or 2030s). (mckinsey.com)
– Current evidence strongly supports his diagnosis that the field would remain expensive and capital‑hungry for years, but it does not yet confirm or refute his long‑term success claim.

Because the decisive part of the prediction (“we are going to get there”) refers to a longer time frame than has elapsed and the technologies have not yet either clearly succeeded or definitively failed at cost‑competitive scale, the correct classification as of November 2025 is “inconclusive (too early).”