BioLife (BLFS) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Date

Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. ET

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board — Roderick de Greef
• Chief Financial Officer — Troy Wichterman

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Takeaways

• Total Revenue -- $28.1 million, up 31% year-over-year, driven primarily by the cell processing division.
• Cell Processing Revenue -- $25.4 million, up 33% year-over-year; adjusting for a $1.3 million order pulled into the quarter, year-over-year growth would have been 26%.
• Biopreservation Media (BPM) Sales Mix -- More than 80% of cell processing revenue, with the top 20 BPM customers accounting for approximately 80% of BPM revenue.
• Direct vs. Distributor BPM Revenue -- 70% direct and 30% distributor in the quarter, compared to a historical 60/40 split; commercial customers contributed nearly 50% of BPM revenue.
• BPM Market Penetration -- Embedded in 16 approved therapies and over 250 U.S. CGT clinical trials, representing a greater than 70% share.
• Phase 3 Trial Presence -- Products present in more than 30 phase three clinical trials, with a nearly 80% share in those programs.
• Adjusted EBITDA Margin -- 28%, expanding by 500 basis points year-over-year.
• GAAP Gross Margin -- 62% versus 63% the previous year; adjusted gross margin was 64%, down from 67% due to a $600,000 one-time inventory reserve and less favorable product mix.
• Operating Expenses -- GAAP operating expenses of $28.2 million, up from $21.8 million year-over-year; adjusted operating expenses at $16.6 million, up from $14.1 million.
• GAAP Operating Loss -- $89,000, an improvement from $418,000 in the prior year.
• Adjusted Operating Income -- $1.3 million, compared to $167,000 in the prior year.
• GAAP Net Income -- $621,000, or $0.01 per share, versus a GAAP net loss of $471,000, or $0.01 per share, a year ago.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- $7.8 million, up from $5 million year-over-year, representing 28% of revenue versus the prior year's 23% and including the $600,000 inventory reserve.
• Cash Position -- $98.4 million in cash and marketable securities at September 30, 2025, prior to receiving $25.5 million from the EVO Cold Chain Logistics sale in October.
• EVO Cold Chain Logistics Divestiture -- Sold for $25.5 million, further optimizing the portfolio and strengthening the balance sheet.
• Revised 2025 Guidance -- Projected cell processing revenue of $93 million to $94 million, representing 26%-28% growth; total revenue guidance of $95 million to $96 million, reflecting 27%-29% growth on a comparable basis after excluding EVO.
• 2026 Price Increases -- Expected price increases of 4%-6% depending on the SKU, based on customer contracts.
• Short-Term Debt -- $7.5 million SCB debt classified as short-term, with a final payment of $1.2 million due June 2026; quarterly repayments of $2.5 million expected.
• Share Count -- 48.1 million shares outstanding and 50.1 million fully diluted as of October 30, 2025.

Summary

BioLife Solutions (NASDAQ:BLFS) delivered double-digit revenue growth and margin expansion in the reported quarter, driven by continued momentum in cell processing sales and a shift toward higher-margin recurring revenue. Management completed the strategic portfolio optimization with the sale of the EVO Cold Chain Logistics business, reallocating capital to focus on pure-play cell processing and core competencies. The company increased full-year guidance, highlighted by strengthened cash reserves and clear market leadership, particularly in biopreservation media and late-stage clinical trials. A significant one-time inventory reserve impacted gross margin, but disciplined capital allocation and operational efficiency were emphasized for future periods.

• Roderick de Greef noted, "we are raising our full-year 2025 guidance as our team continues to execute and build on the momentum we've seen develop over recent quarters."
• Cell processing customer concentration remains with large commercial and late-stage clinical customers, now forming more than 50% of BPM revenue base, seen as the main near-term growth drivers.
• No material lingering costs from the divested EVO platform are expected in operations going forward, per Troy Wichterman’s explicit statements.
• Direct pricing actions and contract negotiations contributed to price growth above list increases in year-to-date results, with additional price increases planned for 2026.
• BioLife Solutions’ products are present in over 70% of relevant U.S. CGT trials and nearly 80% of phase three trials, securing visibility into long-term demand from approved and pipeline therapies.
• Management articulated capital allocation priorities will focus on disciplined, high-margin opportunities for potential inorganic growth that do not current margin expansion.
• Operational leverage is highlighted by a 500 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin, attributed to a mix of higher-margin recurring revenue, streamlined operations, and a focused product portfolio.

Industry glossary

• CGT (Cell and Gene Therapy): Therapies based on modifying cells or genes to treat disease, requiring specialized biopreservation and processing tools.
• BPM (Biopreservation Media): Proprietary products designed to preserve live cells and tissues for clinical and research applications, central to the company's recurring revenue.
• EVO Cold Chain Logistics: Former BioLife subsidiary providing cloud-connected storage and transport for temperature-sensitive biologics, divested in October 2025.
• ThawSTAR: Automated devices for thawing cryopreserved biological materials, part of BioLife’s remaining product portfolio.
• SCB Debt: Short-term loan facility disclosed in BioLife’s capital structure, with specific repayment and maturity details referenced.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Roderick de Greef: Thanks, Troy. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for BioLife's third quarter 2025 conference call. BioLife delivered another strong quarter, and we are raising our full-year 2025 guidance as our team continues to execute and build on the momentum we've seen develop over recent quarters. On the top line, cell processing revenue increased 33% year over year, driving a 31% increase in total revenue for the quarter. This growth reflects sustained strength across our biopreservation media franchise and broader cell processing portfolio. Importantly, the mix of higher-margin recurring revenue continues to translate into improved profitability with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 500 basis points year over year to 28%.

This demonstrates that the operating leverage inherent in our business model is flowing through to the bottom line, driven by the benefits of our streamlined operations and focused product portfolio. In early October, we announced the sale of our EVO Cold Chain Logistics product line for approximately $25 million in cash. This transaction further strengthens our balance sheet, bringing cash and marketable securities to approximately $125 million. Strategically, the sale allows us to focus entirely on what is now a fully optimized portfolio, which is aligned with our core competencies, advancing our transformation into a leading pure-play cell processing company, and operational strengths.

Over the last two years, our actions have reshaped BioLife into a more focused, high-margin enterprise, positioning us to deliver sustainable growth and expanding profitability for the balance of 2025 and beyond, both from continued organic growth and potentially inorganically through the disciplined allocation of capital. Looking at the third quarter more closely, cell processing revenue reached $25.4 million, a 33% year-over-year increase, driven by strong growth across our BPM franchise and our broader cell processing tools portfolio. It's important to note that at the request of a commercial customer, we shipped $1.3 million of BPM product in the third quarter that was originally scheduled to ship in Q4.

Adjusting for this timing-related pull forward, year-over-year cell processing revenue for Q3 would have come in at 26% and total revenue at 25%. Excluding the early shipment, BPM products represented more than 80% of total cell processing revenue, and our top 20 BPM customers continue to account for approximately 80% of BPM revenue, providing us with the benefit of increased visibility into these metrics, which are consistent with previous quarters and underscore the stability of our recurring revenue base. Staying focused on our BPM revenue, our direct versus distributor mix shifted to approximately 70/30 compared to our historical 60/40 split.

This transition reflects continued momentum from our commercial customers, which accounted for nearly 50% of BPM revenue, driving a higher proportion of direct sales relative to distribution. Looking ahead, we expect that our existing commercial customers, together with those advancing late-stage clinical programs, will remain key drivers of future growth into next year and beyond, and that the commercial share of our BPM revenue will continue to increase over time. This increased mix of late-stage and commercial customers further highlights the resilience and consistency inherent in our model. This momentum within our BPM customer base is reinforced by the continued breadth and depth of our presence across the CGT landscape.

At the end of the third quarter, our BPM products were embedded in 16 approved therapies, utilized in more than 250 relevant commercially sponsored CGT clinical trials in the US, representing over a 70% share.

Troy Wichterman: Notably,

Roderick de Greef: this includes more than 30 phase three trials where our share is nearly 80%, underscoring BioLife's position as the default partner for later-stage clinical programs where success rates are higher and the path to commercial revenue is more clearly defined. Building on this market leadership, we continue to focus on expanding our role within these customer programs beyond biopreservation media. Our sales and marketing team remains highly focused on the significant longer-term cross-sell opportunity in front of us to drive adoption of our other cell processing tools across our marquee BPM customer base.

As I've previously stated, this opportunity has the potential to increase our revenue per patient dose by two to three times compared to our BPM products alone, as customers adopt additional components of our offering. We look forward to sharing progress on this front on future calls. As we look beyond the near term, our focus remains on the broader market dynamics shaping demand for cell processing solutions, particularly the continued expansion of patient access to cell therapies, as well as expectations of additional unique approvals, geographic expansions, and new indications for existing approved therapies.

Because our biopreservation media is embedded in nearly all approved cell therapies and nearly 80% of late-stage clinical trials, we have clearer visibility and predictability into future demand trends. More than half our BPM revenue comes from established commercial customers and late-stage programs, segments that are growing and less affected by early-stage volatility in the broader CGT landscape. In short, as patient access expands and new therapies are approved over time, BioLife will continue to grow with that dynamic, leveraging our market-leading position and trusted customer relationships to capture durable recurring revenue growth.

Finally, given the results through the first nine months of the year and our visibility into Q4 at this point, we're raising our full-year cell processing revenue guidance, which was $91 million to $93 million, to $94 million, representing a 26% to 28% year-over-year growth rate. Total revenue guidance, when adjusted for the sale of EVO, is expected to come in at $95 million to $96 million, representing a growth rate of 27% to 29% on a like-for-like basis. Troy?

Troy Wichterman: Thank you, Rod. With that, I'll hand the call over to Troy, who will provide an overview of our full Q3 results. We reported Q3 revenue of $28.1 million, representing an increase of 31% year over year. The year-over-year increase was primarily related to a 33% increase in our cell processing platform, driven by strong demand from biopreservation media customers with commercially approved therapies. In addition, Q3 included a biopreservation media sales order of approximately $1.3 million that was anticipated to ship in Q4 but was shipped in Q3 based on the customer's request. GAAP gross margin for Q3 2025 was 62% compared with 63% in Q3 2024.

The decrease in adjusted gross margin for the third quarter was 64% compared with 67% in the prior year. The percentage compared with the prior year was primarily attributed to a $600,000 one-time inventory reserve we took into Q3 2025, which represented approximately 2% of our Q3 2025 revenue. Additionally, there was a less favorable product mix compared to the prior year. GAAP operating expenses for Q3 2025 were $28.2 million versus $21.8 million in Q3 2024. The increase compared to the prior year can be attributed to increases in cost of sales related to our increased revenues and an increase in stock-based comp expense of $1.8 million over Q3 2024 related to performance-based awards.

Adjusted operating expenses for Q3 2025 totaled $16.6 million compared with $14.1 million in the prior year. GAAP operating loss for Q3 2025 was $89,000 versus $418,000 in the prior year. The decrease in GAAP operating loss was primarily due to increased revenue compared to the year. Our adjusted operating income for the third quarter 2025 was $1.3 million compared with an adjusted operating income of $167,000 in Q3 2024. Our GAAP net income was $621,000 or $0.01 per share in Q3 compared to a GAAP net loss of $471,000 or $0.01 per share in the prior year. The increase in net income was primarily due to increased revenues compared to the prior year.

Adjusted EBITDA for 2025 was $7.8 million or 28% of revenue compared with $5 million or 23% of revenue in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA increased in the prior year in gross margin primarily due to a $3.9 million increase driven by increased sales of biopreservation media and includes a $600,000 one-time inventory reserve. Turning to our balance sheet, our cash and marketable securities balance reported as of September 30, 2025, was $98.4 million compared with $100.2 million as of June 30, 2025.

Taking into consideration our adjusted EBITDA of $7.8 million in Q3, cash usage was primarily driven by capital expenditures of $3.7 million, debt principal payments of $2.5 million, and the purchase of the Pluristics convertible promissory note for $2 million. The September balance excludes the proceeds from the sale of our EVO Cold Chain Logistics product line, which occurred on October 6. The entirety of our $7.5 million SCB debt balance is considered short-term. Our final payment on the SCB debt balance is due June 2026. We continue to expect making quarterly repayments of $2.5 million and have a $1.2 million loan maturity balloon payment due at that time of maturity.

Subsequent to quarter-end, on October 6, we completed the sale of our EVO Cold Chain Logistics subsidiary for an aggregate sales price of $25.5 million, subject to certain adjustments. In our Q3 earnings release, we are presenting an estimate of key financial results excluding EVO by quarter for 2024 through Q3 2025. Turning to our 2025 financial guidance, we are increasing our original guidance from our Q2 earnings call. And we are adjusting our full-year guidance to reflect the divestiture of the EVO Cold Chain Logistics business, which occurred on October 6. We anticipate it will be classified as discontinued operations.

Our previously stated revenue guidance from the Q2 earnings call was $100 million to $103 million, which included approximately $8 million of revenue attributed to EVO. Adjusting for EVO, our total revenue guidance would have been $92 million to $95 million. We are now raising our adjusted 2025 total revenue guidance to $95 million to $96 million, which includes our cell processing and ThawSTAR product lines, representing an increase of 27% to 29% when compared to prior year revenue on a like-for-like basis. Our adjusted revenue guidance includes increasing our cell processing revenue guidance from $91 million to $93 million to $93 million to $94 million, or a 26% to 28% growth rate compared to the prior year.

Our guidance implies a sequential decrease in revenue in Q4 compared to Q3 due to the $1.3 million media order that was anticipated to take place in Q4 but was shipped in Q3 based on the customer's request. We continue to expect for the full year to be in the mid-60s adjusted gross margin, a reduction of GAAP net loss, and expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin in 2025 when compared to 2024 due to higher expected revenue, partially offset by increases in R&D expenses related to development projects. Finally, in terms of our share count, as of October 30, we had 48.1 million shares issued and outstanding and 50.1 million shares on a fully diluted basis.

Now I'll turn the call back to the operator to open up for questions.

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Please go ahead.

Paul Knight: Hi, Rod. Congrats on the quarter. What's pricing like? What was it in three or nine months year to date? And what do you anticipate pricing to be in years ahead?

Roderick de Greef: So I'll take the last part and let Troy address the first one. So we're expected to increase prices in 2026 between 4% to 6% depending on the SKU. And if you're talking about price growth, in year-to-date Q3, we did have price growth that was higher than our list price increases due to those customer contract negotiations we've been talking about.

Paul Knight: Okay. And on your direct sales, I know you're trying to sell a variety of products now. What have you been doing with headcount non-media sales? Could you give us color about count versus a year ago on direct sales?

Roderick de Greef: Yeah. So I'd say that we've added perhaps one that's focused on the cross-selling opportunity that we have, bringing that to a total of about six. Right? We're gonna hold fire, although I do suspect we'll add some in 2026. But until we're confident, Paul, of the return on that investment, I think what it comes down to is that it doesn't take a lot of people for us to focus and speaking with the sort of 30% of the biopreservation media on sort of the first the top 20 of our direct customers who are the key candidates to absorb or adopt some additional technology. So the numbers are pretty small.

We may well be specked in some of them, but it's not obvious to us. Let's call it half a dozen of those. Their clinical pipeline is very robust. And the focus is on getting those folks to adopt whether it's the Cryocase, the CellCeal, RHPL, or CT5. Those are the four key products that we're trying to cross-sell into that base.

Matt Stanton: Our next question will come from the name of Matt Stanton. Just one second. Matt Stanton, please go ahead.

Matt Stanton: Hi, Rod. Just curious on the clinical side. We've seen a couple of months here of a little bit better biotech funding, but Rod, maybe one for you. Just in terms of what you saw in 3Q, obviously, it sounds like the commercial was chugging along nicely with the portfolio, albeit that's a smaller piece. And then trends were solid across the broader cell processing tool. I'd love to just get a little more color. Sounds like a potentially more stable funding environment for pharma and biotech. How are you kind of feeling like that might impact their risk appetite to either expand some of these use cases for CGT or even maybe rotate out of these modalities altogether?

Just kind of trying to understand some of the puts and takes for maybe the next eighteen to twenty-four months.

Roderick de Greef: Yeah. To your point, I think across the board from a customer segment perspective, we had growth. But the rates of growth over these different segments are definitely pretty dramatic with the core commercial customers really driving the overall growth in terms of their own growth rate year over year. Again, you know, we keep in good touch with our key distributors. And at least as of our last quarterly business review with stem cell, our largest distributor, and who would be the most susceptible to the sort of funding issues that you're talking about. There's nothing that they can point to either good or bad that would explain sort of the progress that they're seeing this year.

So they're not raising any red flags. And they're also not saying, hey. There's nothing to worry about. So it's still a bit of a wait-and-see mode. With the government shutdown, we have not seen anything specific. But if we were, it might be some relatively small amount of revenue that would hit in Q4. To the extent we believe that's gonna happen, we've already built that in to the rest of the guidance that we have for the year.

Matt Stanton: That's helpful. And then thinking about, you know, the framing around '26. I know it's early days, but you have maybe just taking a step back and have Evo gone. I think the rest of the portfolio, you have pretty good visibility in. If we start to think about your '26, you'll have a tougher comp relative to this year. Sounds like there's been nice pricing this year, but you also expect to take pricing next year. Just can you help kind of help us frame how you're thinking about '26?

Roderick de Greef: Yeah. I'll do it qualitatively, Matt. We believe we've got really strong momentum going into '26. We're expecting to receive the full '26 forecast from these large customers in January. And that's a key part of our methodology relative to developing guidance. And so we're gonna have that by January so that we'll be ready to provide a very specific guidance, which is based on some pretty good visibility on our FY '25 call in mid-February.

Mac Itak: And our next question will come from Mac Itak with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Mac Itak: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll add my congrats as well. Maybe just a few from me. You know, now that the EVO platform is gone and kind of removed from numbers, do you anticipate any lingering cost in Q4 and into FY '26?

Troy Wichterman: Roy, you wanna take the first one? Yeah. So as far as your question about lingering cost, in Q4, if you look at the earnings release, we provide an estimate of our financial results, excluding EVO. So if you look at that Q3 number, that's a good baseline for Q4 as well. There's really no lingering OpEx at this point in our corporate structure. It's really what's in that results that we've presented in the earnings release is how we see it today.

Mac Itak: And then secondly, the EVO sale is essentially the last piece of the strategic review puzzle. It's now complete. So what are you thinking in terms of capital allocation with the cash you have on your balance sheet? Thanks.

Roderick de Greef: And on your capital allocation question, Mac, I think that, you know, we say though that given the fact that we're gonna be pretty disciplined about what we look at, and key filter criteria for us when we look at something inorganic, significant margin expansion in front of us and I don't want to retard that in any way or attenuate that.

Mac Itak: I appreciate the context. I'll leave it there.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Brendan Smith with TD Cowen. Hi guys, thanks for taking the questions. Apologies if it's a little loud. Please go ahead.

Brendan Smith: Nice to see the steady demand across the segment and the new Biden. Too. I think kind of just piggybacking on some of the earlier questions here. Just trying to get a little better sense for the really next wave of growth for you all. I guess in conversations with customers, a potentially more stable funding environment for pharma and biotech. How are you kind of feeling like that might impact their risk appetite to either expand some of these use cases for CGT or even maybe rotate out of these modalities altogether? Just kind of trying to understand some of the puts and takes for maybe the next eighteen to twenty-four months.

Roderick de Greef: Yeah. So when you look at the contribution to total revenue that our commercial and our late-stage clinical customers provide, which is in excess of 50% of our BPM revenue, we believe that's gonna continue to grow and accelerate. And so, really, that's what we're relying on for the next eighteen to twenty-four months, let's say, for growth drivers. We do believe everything else will grow, but in terms of the stronger growth rate, it's gonna come from there. So, you know, the good news is that most of our commercial customers also have a pretty deep clinical pipeline.

I mean, we're in 30 phase three clinical trials, and we believe that a good portion of those over the next twenty-four months will get across the line, which will just be additive to the growth that's coming from our existing commercial therapies.

Brendan Smith: Got it. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Star then one. Our next question comes from Thomas Flaten with Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Thomas Flaten: Hey, guys. Appreciate taking the questions. Ron, on some prior calls, there had been some discussion around you had a customer evaluating the cryo case. Any update on how that project is going?

Roderick de Greef: Yeah. It's going. You know, and I think getting closer to a point where we're getting them to make a commitment to us in exchange, as I've talked about before, for doing some development work. We're not gonna do the development work on the come per se. But these are large organizations. They've got a lot of things going on. The good news is that, again, deep clinical pipeline, we're not gonna be in there. But they definitely have a pain point on bags. They've expressed that to us a number of times. So it's really our product development team working with their process development folks about exactly what changes they want made.

I think we're pretty close to that part. And now it's really coming down to the more commercial discussion of, okay. What level of commitment can you make to us for us to go ahead and expend the resources to make this happen? And we could, of course, do it just on the come, but I think it's important to solidify their commitment to adopting the technology into the clinical pipeline before we start spending money on it.

Thomas Flaten: Got it. And then just to follow-up on a prior question regarding the strategic review process. Being complete. So THAA is with us, right? THAA is not going anywhere. That was never on the table, to confirm?

Roderick de Greef: It was never on the table. We feel that THAA is almost a reverse razor blade type of product. You know, we recently, well, recently, I'd say in the last year and a half, we were able to get the THAA unit to work with CellCeal vials, because the Celsius vials were of a different size that the THAA vial device was set up to thaw. We're now in the process of doing that for our CryoCase so that we have an automated thaw device for CryoCase. And it's just extremely complementary relative to those two products. So that's it's got good margins.

We put very little sales and marketing effort into it at this point, and yet it delivers consistent growth at a really attractive rate. So it's definitely a keeper.

Thomas Flaten: Got it. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

Roderick de Greef: You bet. Thank you.

Operator: With no further questions, this will conclude the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Roderick de Greef, CEO and Chairman of the Board for any closing remarks.

Roderick de Greef: As I look back, I'm very pleased with the progress the BioLife team has made in executing a fundamental strategic transformation. In closing, it's been two years since I returned to the company in an operating role. In the last twenty-four months, we have solidified and built upon our market leadership position in biopreservation media, driving strong top-line growth and significant margin expansion. We have optimized our product portfolio so that we can focus our efforts on our higher growth and higher margin recurring revenue products. We've also strengthened our balance sheet and have the resources to explore inorganic product portfolio expansion into relevant adjacencies in a measured and disciplined manner.

All of this in combination with what is still a relatively nascent but very exciting market leaves us confident in our ability to continue to deliver sustainable revenue growth, margin expansion, and shareholder value creation in 2026 and beyond. Thank you for your time today, and I look forward to seeing some of you at upcoming investor conferences.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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