- BioLife Solutions is a leading company focused on the cell therapy market.
- The company has demonstrated strong growth and market adoption even through COVID.
- The company has a differentiated technology platform that will allow them to take share over time.
- Valuation is healthy but given the company’s product leadership and addressable market size, I believe there is still significant room for the stock to appreciate.
- Based on my 40x revenue multiple, I believe there is 29% upside from levels today.
Introduction
BioLife Solutions (BLFS) is a company focused on providing bio-preservation and associated tools focused on the life sciences space. This includes core bio-preservation media for cell therapies, automated thawing tools, as well as storage (high capacity freezer storage) and cloud connected shipping containers. Even through COVID the company performed very well as seen in the stock performance below
Investment Thesis
Looking at the company’s most recent quarterly financials, we see signs of significant acceleration of growth even through the pandemic. From a revenues perspective, total revenues of $11.3 million was up nearly 71% year on year. Operating losses did increase as the company continued to invest in the business versus focusing on profitability. Given the company’s strong M&A strategy including the $30 million acquisition of SciSafe in October, there may be a need for additional dilutive capital raises to fund this strategy.
My overall bullishness on the company is due to the strong industry drivers in cell and regenerative therapies. As an example, there are over one thousand such clinical trials currently underway. Although not all will be eventually be FDA approved, I believe this demonstrates the significant industry interest in this space that will drive increasing demand for the company’s products.
The company also has extensive product differentiation with the company having a well-diversified product portfolio covering everything from preservation media, to shipping, to storage, to biostorage. This is alongside extensive customer validation with numerous leading companies currently using the company’s products. These companies include Kite Pharma, Editas Medicine, Celgene, and Novartis.
