BioLife Solutions acquired SAVSU Technologies, after previously collaborating with the company on biologistics services, by exercising the option to take on the remaining 56% of the company’s shares it did not already own, in exchange for 1.1m shares of BioLife common stock.
BioLife, a developer and manufacturer of biopreservation media and automated cell thawing media devices, will completely own the commercial cold chain tools company after the transaction is complete. The acquisition of SAVSU is expected to give BioLife the ability to supply solutions for the collection, manufacture, storage, and distribution of cell and gene therapies.
Mike Rice, CEO, of BioLife told us, “SAVSU is at a critical inflection point in customer adaption, so we accelerated our option to acquire SAVSU to begin leveraging our sales and marketing efforts.”
SAVSU specializes in the development and marketing of precision cold chain management tools for commercializing cell and gene therapies. The company also recently developed the evo Cold Chain 2.0 System using smart shippers equipped with communication systems.
SAVSU’s evo.is shipping containers are connected to the cloud-based evo.is shipment visibility platform, which enables clients the ability to track the shipment in real-time. Its cold chain shipping tools have been used by more than 50 cell and gene therapy clinical trial stage companies since 2019.
Rice further explained that the application of cold chain technology is imperative to cell and gene therapies as it is used to “’buy some time’ to transport these sensitive materials across time and space by reducing metabolism.”
“It’s imperative that the cells arrive alive to elicit the desired therapeutic response. Dead cells don’t cure cancer. With the emerging reimbursement paradigm of ‘pay on cure’, cell and gene therapy developers must do everything possible to reduce the risk of administering a non-viable dose to the patient, since payment Is predicated on a positive patient response,” Rice added.
Additionally, the transaction includes all SAVSU intellectual property, including 15 pending and issued US patents for cold chain technologies. The BioLife team will see the addition of 23 of SAVSU’s employees.