Stirling Ultracold Announces Merger Agreement with BioLife Solutions to Further Support Life-Science Industry with Expertise in Ultra-Low Temperature Storage

ATHENS, Ohio, March 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Stirling Ultracold, a privately-held innovative developer and manufacturer of ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to merge into BioLife Solutions (NASDAQ: BLFS) to combine expertise and expand individual product offerings for biopharma research and life science customers. Following the early second quarter 2021 close of this transaction, BioLife intends to keep the Stirling Ultracold brand in-tact and maintain existing staff in Athens, Ohio – noting business-as-usual for existing customers and partners.    

Stirling Ultracold revolutionized the ULT freezer market in 2010 by developing and releasing the first Energy Star™ certified ULT freezer, in the world.  The company possesses over 80 patents on various applications of the Stirling technology and has been at the forefront of COVID-19 vaccination efforts by providing the only line of ULT freezer systems capable of storing any mRNA vaccine requiring -20°C to -86°C thermal protection. 

Prior to this merger, Stirling Ultracold worked closely with many of the BioLife business lines including Custom Biogenics Systems and SciSafe Biorepositories. As such, Stirling Ultracold does not anticipate any significant changes with day-to-day operations but expects Stirling shareholders and their 150+ member team to immediately benefit from the expanded breadth and scale of technologies BioLife Solutions has to offer.

"This pandemic has galvanized pharmaceutical research.  With critical medicines and therapies coming to market faster than ever before, and new advances in science testing the limits of treatment, ultracold storage must be ready to support the breadth of needs in the biopharmaceutical, government and academic research, clinical trials, biobanking, and cell, regenerative and gene therapy markets," said Dusty Tenney, CEO of Stirling Ultracold. "We are energized by this event and look forward to continuing to provide our customers with ultra-low temperature Stirling freezer solutions and now the full breadth of product capabilities within BioLife Solutions." Further, Jay Vierling, Stirling Ultracold Chairman of the Board noted, "this has been the culmination of hard work and dedication of so many talented team members who will be rewarded with tremendous growth potential the synergies of this merger bring."

Mike Rice, BioLife Solutions CEO, remarked, "We continue to execute on our M&A strategy with another acquisition that superbly complements our product portfolio. Combining Stirling's -20°C to -86°C freezer systems with our liquid nitrogen products provides complete ultra-low temperature cold-chain infrastructure critical for personalized medicine.  Further, Stirling's intellectual property portfolio fulfills our goal of acquiring novel and disruptive technologies that we can market to our cell and gene therapy customers, as well as to the broader biopharma industry."

From cell and gene therapy tools to on-site clinical sample storage, BioLife Solutions aims to be the consultant of choice on all things ultracold.   

About Stirling Ultracold
Stirling Ultracold, a division of Global Cooling, Inc., manufactures and sells environmentally sustainable ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers for the global market from its headquarters in Athens, Ohio. Powered by the free-piston Stirling engine, and the first in the U.S. to use 100 percent natural refrigerants, these upright and undercounter ULT freezers use less than one-third the electric power of standard compressor-based ULT freezers, as validated by the industry's first ENERGY STAR™ rating for ULT freezers. The company also produces the industry's only portable ULT solution available for remote clinical trials and biologic drug delivery. For more information, please call (740) 274-7900, or visit the company's website, www.StirlingUltracold.com.

About BioLife Solutions
BioLife Solutions is a leading supplier of class-defining cell and gene therapy bioproduction tools and services. Our tools portfolio includes our proprietary CryoStor® freeze media and HypoThermosol® shipping and storage media, ThawSTAR® family of automated, water-free thawing products, evo® cold chain management system,  Custom Biogenic Systems high capacity storage freezers and SciSafe biologic storage services. For more information, please visit www.biolifesolutions.com, and follow BioLife on Twitter.

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SOURCE Stirling Ultracold