It's only been two weeks since we covered BioLife Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:BLFS) here, detailing the company's then-latest announcement and putting forward what we were looking for next as likely to compound the action we had seen subsequent to our coverage and get the stock running up further.At the time, BioLife went for $3 a piece. The company reached $3.60 towards the end of last week and will open the session at $3.53 on Tuesday. That's a 20% run to highs and a more than 17% run to current pricing.In response to the recent appreciation, then, it's time to take a look at the company and, once again, ask the question – what's coming next?Before we get into our expectations, let's bring those not familiar with this company up to date. It's a biotechnology company (as its name suggests) and it creates and sells biopreservation and storage/shipping type containers for cells, tissues, and organs. As we noted last time, the best way to describe what this one does is through the organ transport example. Specifically, when a donated organ travels from one hospital facility to another, it needs to be stored and packaged correctly. It's got to stay cold, maintain a homeostatic environment and basically stay in a usable condition ahead of transplant into another patient. BioLife provides the materials necessary to make this happen. The company also creates and sells the type of tech needed to store cells used in drug development, as well as a whole host of other infrastructure and framework support type tech.Anyway, what's important here, and what we highlighted last time as being key to this company building on the strength it was experiencing back in early July, is the business model – BioLife's model is rooted in securing long-term agreements with third parties, which see the latter utilize the former’s technology in its operations. In June, the company announced one such agreement with Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC – ADR (NASDAQ:ADAP), which will see BioLife provide the storage equipment for the T cells that underpin Adaptimmune’s development pipeline.We said we wanted to see some more deals of this type announced during the coming weeks to get the stick running and – at the end of last week – we got exactly what we were looking for.On July 5, the company announced that it had secured a cell storage agreement with a company called Kolon Life Science. The latter has just picked up approval for a drug called Invossa-K Inj., which is the world's first cell and gene therapy for degenerative arthritis, from the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS).The drug needs to be stored within a very specific temperature range (and this range needs to maintain a high degree of stability) between it leaving the manufacturing facility and being injected into a patient at-facility.As per the latest agreement, the manufactured Invossa cell and gene therapy will be frozen and shipped in BioLife's CryoStor cell freeze media. This will serve to ensure maximum efficacy on injection and improve shelf life subsequent to manufacture.So what's next?Well, some readers might be thinking "it's just the Korean market, it's not that big a deal" and – in some ways, they'd be correct. With this development, however, it's all about the bigger picture. The Korean approval paves the way for approval in many more regions globally. Worldwide, an estimated 150 million people suffer from knee osteoarthritis. BioLife estimates that just 1% of the worldwide addressable patient population represents at least $5 million in revenue for the company. Right now, the company generated $8 million revenues throughout the entirety of last year. If this drug takes off, and the Korean approval is a first step towards it doing just that, it could account for a dramatic multiple on current annual revenues on its own.Cash was a little shy of $2.3 million at March 31 and the company has no debt, making this one pretty strong from a dilution risk perspective.Check out our previous coverage of this one here. We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on BLFS, sign up below!Image courtesy of Madame Libertine via FlickrDisclosure: We have no position in BLFS and have not been compensated for this article.
Here's What's Behind The BioLife Solutions Inc (NASDAQ:BLFS) Run And What It Means Going Forward







