BOTHELL, Wash., July 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BioLife Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLFS), the leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of proprietary clinical grade cell and tissue hypothermic storage and cryopreservation freeze media ("BioLife" or the "Company"), today announced that it has executed a long term supply agreement with NASDAQ-listed Celyad, a leader in the discovery and development of CAR-T cell therapies. BioLife's CryoStor clinical grade cell freeze media is incorporated into Celyad's manufacturing process for its Natural Killer Receptor based T-Cell (NKR-T) platform.

In addition, CryoStor and HypoThermosol^®, BioLife's companion cell storage and shipping media, have been used in at least 250 regenerative medicine applications, including several late stage clinical trials.

Mike Rice, BioLife President & CEO, commented, "The execution of this new supply agreement further validates the critical role our proprietary biopreservation media products play in the development and commercialization of cellular therapies. We are very pleased to support Celyad in their mission to bring potential life-saving cell-based products to the market."

About Celyad

Celyad is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of specialized CAR-T cell based therapies. The company utilizes its expertise in cell engineering to target cancer. Celyad's Natural Killer Receptor based T-Cell (NKR-T) platform has the potential to treat a broad range of solid and hematologic tumors. Its lead oncology candidate, CYAD-01 (CAR-T NKG2D), is being evaluated in the THINK open-label Phase I study to assess the safety & clinical activity of multiple administrations of autologous CAR-T NKR-2 cells in 7 refractory cancers. Celyad is also advancing a robust immuno-oncology pipeline that includes CYAD-02 (Celyad's allogeneic platform), CYAD-03 (CAR-T B7H6), CYAD-04 (CAR-T NKp30) and CYAD-05 (CAR-T NKG2Dβ), all at pre-clinical stage. Celyad was founded in 2007 and is based in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, and Boston, Massachusetts. Celyad's ordinary shares are listed on the Euronext Brussels and Euronext Paris exchanges, and its American Depository Shares are listed on NASDAQ Global Market, all under the ticker symbol CYAD. 

About BioLife Solutions

BioLife Solutions develops, manufactures and markets biopreservation media products and smart shipping containers connected to a cloud hosted cold chain management app to improve the quality of delivery logistics for cells, tissues, and organs. The Company's proprietary HypoThermosol^® and CryoStor^® platform of solutions are highly valued in the biobanking, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine markets. BioLife's biopreservation media products are serum-free and protein-free, fully defined, and are formulated to reduce preservation-induced cell damage and death. BioLife's enabling technology provides commercial companies and clinical researchers significant improvement in shelf life and post-preservation viability and function of cells, tissues, and organs.  For more information please visit www.biolifesolutions.com, and follow BioLife on Twitter.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements concerning new products, the company's anticipated business and operations, the potential utility of and market for its products and services, potential revenue growth and market expansion, and commercial manufacturing of our customers' products. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, including among other things, uncertainty regarding market adoption of products; uncertainty regarding third party market projections; market volatility; competition; litigation; and those other factors described in our risk factors set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained herein or to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date hereof, other than as may be required by applicable law.

Media & Investor Relations
Roderick de Greef
Chief Financial Officer
(425) 686-6003
rdegreef@biolifesolutions.com

SOURCE BioLife Solutions, Inc.