BIOLIFE SOLUTIONS INC Q3 FY2024 earnings call

• Cell Processing platform showed strong performance with $19M revenue in Q3 2024, having sequential and year-over-year growth, and high margin and margin expansion. - Announced the strategic divestiture of the SciSafe bio storage business, which is a pivotal step in the company's evolution. - Biopreservation media products have strong market presence with being embedded in over 70% of relevant CGT clinical trials and 17 unique therapies incorporating the media, with 6 additional approvals, expansions, or indications expected in the next 12 months. - The company will refocus efforts and allocate capital towards the proprietary, high-growth, high-margin cell processing portfolio.

The Cell Processing platform revenue totaled $19 million in Q3 2024, representing a sequential increase of 6% and a 43% year-over-year growth. Biopreservation media products, which make up the majority of the Cell Processing platform's revenue, had a strong quarter-over-quarter increase. Historical biopreservation media revenue trends show that the top 20 customers account for approximately 80% of media revenue, with an estimated 60% coming from direct customers and 40% from customers with approved therapies.

The total revenue for 2024 is expected to be $98 million to $100 million, a reduction from the previous guidance of $99 million to $101 million. The cell processing platform guidance is increased by $2 million to $72 million to $73 million, and the biostorage services platform is expected to contribute $26 million to $27 million including 10 months of SciSafe revenue. The company believes the momentum from Q3 results provides a solid base for entering 2025.

Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties found in the company's SEC filings. There could be potential industry-wide issues that might impact the business, although destocking is believed to be behind us at this point.

Q: Hi. This is Hannah on for Jacob. Thanks for taking the questions. To start with the SciSafe sale, can you just frame up what pro forma gross margins look like, and then how should we think about any OpEx savings and depreciation going forward?

A: Yes, we issued an 8-K earlier today that lays out all the details for different prior periods, 2021 up to the 6 months ended in 2024. So you'll see in the 6 months of 2024, adjusted gross margin without SciSafe of 60% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13%. However, going forward, we expect that to have a very minimal impact on our adjusted EBITDA profile.

Q: All right, thanks. And then I know you're not guiding into 2025, but with destocking, we've seen some swings in revenue and growth over the last year. And I'm just curious if you could frame up how we should think about long-term growth from here? And if there are any puts and takes we should be aware of as we're starting to think about 2025.

A: Yes, I think the best thing to do would be to wait for us to put out our formal guidance, which we'll do in early January, in advance of the JPM conference. But I think if you -- your point is well taken with respect to Q2 to Q3 last year. But then when you look at Q3 forward, as we said in our formal remarks, that we've had four quarters of sequential growth. And while it may not be sequential each and every quarter going forward, we certainly do expect growth in '25. And we believe that the destocking in particular is well behind us at this point in time.

Q: Hey, Rod, you talked about post SciSafe sale, kind of being able to streamline the structure, balance sheet in a better position to deliver value. Just talk about some of the areas of focus post the sale, whether it would be looking to do additional deals, capacity adds around the media business, just like where the focus will be strategically post the SciSafe sale there.

A: You bet. The focus is in general around our cell processing product line, which would be the biopreservation media and the Sexton tools that we acquired several years back, which would include HPL, the CryoSeal product line, which includes the newly introduced CryoCase, as well as the CT5 automated fill machine. So those products are going to get the lion share of our attention. With respect to capacity, in particular, we definitely have some capacity needs coming into the next couple of years with respect to biopreservation. That sale of SciSafe provides us with the capital to do so. To the extent that we would look at anything inorganic or any kind of transactions from an M&A perspective, I think that there's a place for that. But I think that our criteria going forward around this issue is very stringent. And I think at this point, the only thing that we would look to do needs to have a direct impact on maintaining or expanding our market leadership position in those cell processing tools. So that would be biopreservation media. It would be HPL, et cetera. The other, I think, key criteria is that whatever we do does not negatively impact the margin expansion trajectory that we're on right now, because that's a critical objective for us to increase that margin both on the growth side and on the adjusted EBITDA side.

Q: Awesome. Thanks for that. And then, I guess, going back over to Sexton, the launch of the new CryoCase, just any update there? I think it's commercially available this quarter, for those that have trials that had it in their hands, kind of feedback, whether that be biopharma customers, CROs, CDMOs, folks like that. And if we look out a year from now, what are you going to quantify as a successful launch of that product here?

A: Yes, I think the initial impression from a handful of really key customers is positive. There's a pretty significant validation process that these customers need to go through to consider this. It's not insurmountable in any way, shape or form, but the initial feedback is good and I would expect to start to see revenue generated at any kind of material level toward the end of next year, the back half of next year. But we may end up talking about some sort of revenue contribution in our guidance, but at this point in time, Matt, it's a little early.

Q: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Congrats on the solid quarter. Maybe just a quick one from us, kind of building on the previous questions here, but can you expand a bit on what some of the specific levers are within the cell processing platform that you can pull heading into next year just to help shore up some of that top line growth in 2025? And I guess what I'm really getting at is that I'm wondering what kinds of macro trends you're seeing specifically and how some of those could be leveraged as you kind of continue to restructure the business internally?

A: Yes. So, I think that as we've talked about a couple of key factors. One would be the fact that 80% of our media revenue comes from 20 customers. That's a really key fact. And so, to some degree, our success is based on their success, right? So that's an important thing. I think that the opportunity that we have to drive revenue past the sort of natural pull that would happen from these large customers is to deepen our relationship with our distributors, which we're working on doing. There are some pricing opportunities that we have also that we have so far had some good initial success on in terms of reducing historical legacy discounts. And I think the other area where we can actually have potentially material impact on driving revenue and cell processing is that cross-selling feature of the Sexton tool products into our existing customer base. And there are a number of different evaluations going on for different products with different customers and we would expect to see some revenue come out of that toward the end of next year in particular, CryoCase being one of those as I mentioned earlier.

Q: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. This is Anna Snopkowski on for Paul. My first question is regarding the announced divestiture of SciSafe. You talked about this a little during your prepared remarks, but I was wondering if this changes your strategy at all going forward specifically on the potential divestiture of CBS.

A: Sorry, I think in terms of CBS, I'll just speak to that specifically. We are definitely in the throes of a transaction there. We're pretty close and we are committed as we have been for some time to exiting that business through a transaction. So stay tuned for that. In terms of the strategic impact of the sale of SciSafe, I think we've tried to be clear about the fact that the focus of the company going forward is going to be on the proprietary higher growth, higher margin recurring revenue products that primarily are in the cell processing platform as it's defined today.

Q: Makes sense. And then just looking at cell processing, is there anything you would call out in terms of customer destocking or pushing out orders? Or would you say that is largely normalized within the segment?

A: Yes, we believe that Q3 was a normalized quarter for us with respect to that. And destocking, as we've talked about in the past, really got behind us sort of Q1. We had one customer in Q2, but that customer started to take product in Q3. So, we do believe it's behind us, barring some sort of industry-wide issue that pops up here again.

Q: Good afternoon and congratulations on a strong quarter. Maybe first up, and thank you for pointing out the 8-K, I think you mentioned 60% roughly gross margins, absent SciSafe contribution in the first half of the year. How should we be thinking about your margin trajectory as we look out into 2025 and beyond? Where could your margins go, particularly on the gross margin side?

A: Yes, I'll take that one. So you're right, 60% for the first half, right? And what we've been talking about how key the growth of the media revenue is to our financial profile, not only on the growth side, but on the adjusted EBITDA side. As you recall, historically, before we did any acquisitions, the media gross margin was roughly 70%. And then some of the initiatives we're working on internally to help expand that margin even further to drive our overall consolidated gross margin into, call it the upper 60s in the not so distant future.

Q: Excellent. And then just regarding the third quarter here, obviously a nice pop, both sequentially and year-on-year for the media business. Was that just a function of the two approvals in the quarter, getting some extra stocking there or was there something else that kind of drove that increase?

A: Yes, it was not related to the two approvals that we saw. There's usually a fairly decent amount of time that goes by between those approvals and seeing that additional demand flow through. It really had to do with just strong demand across that top 20 customer base and came in very nicely for us. So that's -- that and what we see happening in Q4 is what led us to increase the cell processing guidance by $2 million.

Q: Hey, Rod, just to follow-up on that last comment. Can you comment qualitatively on some of the smaller customers, the earlier stage biotechs, academia, et cetera, how are they coming along from a macro perspective?

A: Yes, I think they're coming along fine. And we look at those basically through -- we look at our distributors, our large distributors, the top three, for instance, as proxies for those smaller customers. And we've seen good sequential growth from those distributors, bar one, but that had more to do with the renegotiation of the distributor agreement around pricing than it did around demand. So we feel pretty good that the demand is across the board, not only just for the direct customers, but for distributors as well, representing those smaller academic and earlier stage companies. It's been moving in the right direction for us, for sure.

Q: And then with respect to longer term growth within cell processing, how relevant is Asia, for example, in terms of geographic expansion to help keep those long-term growth rates up?

A: Less than 5% we believe of our revenue comes out of China. Right now, specifically China, even less for the rest of Asia. So while it's an important piece of business for us, it's not material in the sense of the things that are going on, whether it's the Biosecure Act or other things like that, we do not see any impact of that on us going forward, at least at this point in time.

Q: Sorry. So sorry it was. Sorry, it's Jade on for Yi Chen. So thank you for taking my question. Sorry for being on mute. So can you just quickly more on those biggest three distributors you were talking about. Do you have any idea of the approximate number of individual customers that represents or …?

A: Yes, collectively, we think it's in the neighborhood of 4,000 to 5,000 worldwide.

Q: Okay, great. And so I think I heard you say earlier it was 17 approved CGTs currently using the services?

A: That's correct. It's a bio-preservation media, particularly.

Q: Do you expect that number to change in the next 6 months or so, or are most things further back in the queue, do you think?

A: No, as we stated earlier, we do expect six additional, whether they're unique therapies or geographic expansions, indications, new indications for the same therapy, or movement up the line of treatment. We expect six of those occurrences in the next 12 months or so, 9 to 12 months.