BioLife Solutions: Stirling Ultracold, Cold Storage & Strategic Review

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Yes. And they're kind of bleeding a little cash on that right now. So our biggest concern is if we could just buy the media without having fear about their cash situation, without worrying what might or might not happen with Stirling, then we'd be there already. But we wanted to understand how they could pull that back and then wanted to understand some parts about what really makes the media unique and better.

If you take a step back and try to understand what is being presented to the investor base, there are three things. One is that during Covid, an issue arose where parts used for the electronic side of the business was being substituted by suppliers. Given the high-performance requirements of these particular freezers and the energy driven by the system, these parts were prematurely failing in some cases. It didn't happen in all cases, but it was hard to predict. Several different small components on the electronic board would fail, which became the first issue. We characterized it and provided BioLife with some insight into what was happening during the time of the acquisition.

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Yes. And they're kind of bleeding a little cash on that right now. So our biggest concern is if we could just buy the media without having fear about their cash situation, without worrying what might or might not happen with Stirling, then we'd be there already. But we wanted to understand how they could pull that back and then wanted to understand some parts about what really makes the media unique and better.

However, the executive management team, excluding probably the quality lead for the business, was not designed to manage the complexities of a hardware business. They treated these assets as separate standalone entities with little integration. They were managing the business like a holding company, where each of the respective businesses were standalone and measured as such. As the Chief Operating Officer, I had a few opportunities to help them examine the supply chain. There were a few leverage points, but not many.

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Before we delve into the specifics, when we spoke to Mike, he mentioned that Stirling has some unique intellectual property. Could you elaborate on this? He didn't go into detail, but I'd like to understand what makes Stirling a special asset.

In the biologics space, most materials are stored between -20 and -80 degrees Celsius. For instance, blood is typically stored at -80, while other materials, like saliva, are stored at -20. There are other biologic materials that fall within that spectrum. What attracted me to this technology was not only its ability to accommodate this range in a single device but also the potential for other applications. However, when Covid hit and demand increased, we had to focus on the operational challenges of scaling up to support the business.

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