A Medical Device Daily

BioLife Solutions (Bothell, Washington), a developer of hypothermic storage and cryopreservation media products for cells, tissues, and organs, reported that it has agreed to be the exclusive supplier of preservation media to the New England Cryogenic Center (NECC; Newton, Massachusetts), a major provider of cryogenically preserved human cells and tissues.

The five-year agreement includes volume-based pricing and a commitment from NECC to purchase all of its demand for cord blood preservation media from BioLife.

John Rizza, CEO of NECC, said, “We’ve seen significant improvement in post-thaw cell recovery and viability with BioLife’s CryoStor, compared to our prior in-house media formulations. In addition, pre-formulated and sterile CryoStor eliminates our labor cost of mixing preservation media in our lab. CryoStor is also serum-free and protein-free, so this resolved an albumin supply issue we faced.”

PA Consulting Group, a global consulting firm with expertise in life sciences and healthcare, estimates the worldwide market for media to preserve cells, tissues, and organs for research and clinical applications will grow from $200 million in 2007 to more than $325 million by 2011.

BioLife’s HypoThermosol and CryoStor platform of solutions are sold to academic and commercial organizations involved in cell therapy, tissue engineering, cord blood banking, drug discovery, and toxicology testing.