Variability, cost, and availability of fetal bovine serum are in question; thus, we examined whether using a serum replacement factor in multiple mammalian tissue cultures could support not only cell growth, but also viral replication, expression, and retention of phenotypic markers. By using a serum replacement in defined media, we demonstrated multipassage cell growth of several different cell lines and viral cultivation and replication equivalent to fetal bovine serum. Moreover, by supplementing media with a serum replacement factor we observed at least a 28% financial savings.