BioLife Solutions CryoStor® Cell Freeze Media Highlighted in Mayo Clinic/MD Anderson Journal Article on Preservation of Patient-Derived Xenografts for Cancer Research

On March 13, 2018 BioLife Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: BLFS) (“BioLife”), the leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of proprietary clinical grade cell and tissue hypothermic storage and cryopreservation freeze media, announced that the performance of its proprietary, cGMP CryoStor cell freeze media was reported in the journal Laboratory Investigation. In multiple comparisons of preservation efficacy of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) tumors, CryoStor was superior to a traditional DMSO-containing home-brew freeze media cocktail. Key quantitative performance dimensions included the primary outcome of reanimation engraftment efficiency (REE) and secondary outcomes of time to tumor formation (TTF), time to harvest (TTH), and potential loss of unique PDX lines. Drug developers strive to increase efficiency in identifying promising therapeutic candidates, and in disqualifying poor candidates. Pre-clinical anti-cancer drug development models that do not reflect the complexity and heterogeneity of human tumors may negatively impact the clinical efficacy of those novel pharmaceutical candidates. The gap between pre-clinical models and human cancer profiles may increase the research costs before identification of failed anti-cancer agents and further testing is discontinued, as well as potentially increasing the development time of successful anti-cancer candidates. PDX tumor models are being cited as a new tool for improved correlation to human tumors. The results of this study illustrate the benefits of using CryoStor over home-brew freeze media;

• Reanimation engraftment: CryoStor 82% vs. home-brew 39%
• Time to tumor formation: CryoStor 24 days vs. home-brew 54 days
• Time to harvest: CryoStor 64 days vs. home-brew 89 days
• Potential loss of unique PDX lines: CryoStor 9% vs. home-brew 35%

Aby J. Mathew, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, remarked, “Cryopreservation offers the benefit of patient tumor storage for long-term time management, and maintenance of irreplaceable primary patient samples.  Any cell and tissue model for investigation has the potential for cell damage and cell death when cryopreserved, and sub-optimal biopreservation methods can exacerbate the damage to cells and tissues. Recognition of optimized biopreservation methods is an important step in the overall drug development process. The results of this study reinforce our long-time message in support of biopreservation best practices, which has led to the unparalleled use of CryoStor and HypoThermosol^® cGMP biopreservation media in 275+ customer regenerative medicine applications and 325+ literature citations. We look forward to enabling ongoing biopreservation optimization within the drug discovery, biobanking, and regenerative medicine markets with our optimized biopreservation media platforms.” The article can be accessed here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41374-018-0042-7