Hello, my name is Mallory. I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q1 2023 BioLife Solutions Inc. earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during the Q&A session, simply press star then the one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Troy Wichterman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Mallory. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me on today's call is Mike Rice, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results and operational highlights for the first quarter of 2023, which is available at biolifesolutions.com. As a reminder, during this call, we will make certain projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For a detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that affect the company's business and that qualify as forward-looking statements, I refer you to our periodic reports and other public filings filed with the SEC.
Company projections and forward-looking statements are based on factors that are subject to change, and therefore, these statements speak only as of the date they are made. The company assumes no obligation to update any projections or forward-looking statements except as required by law. During this call, we will speak to non-GAAP or adjusted results. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP or adjusted financial metrics are included in the press release we issued this afternoon. These non-GAAP or adjusted financial metrics should not be viewed as an alternative to GAAP. However, in light of our historic M&A activity, we believe that the use of non-GAAP or adjusted metrics provides investors with a clearer view of our current financial results when compared to prior periods. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mike Rice, Chairman and CEO of BioLife Solutions.
Thank you, Troy. I'd like to begin our call by discussing our announcement today that we are actively exploring strategic alternatives for our Stirling ULT and Custom Biogenic Systems cryogenic freezer businesses, which could include out-licensing our proprietary IP, changing our go-to-market approach, and outright divesting these assets. As you know, we had high expectations for the benefits of scale the acquisitions could bring to BioLife and for the potential to cross-sell our core high-margin biopreservation media solutions with CBS and Stirling differentiated freezers. We built BioLife organically and inorganically with acquisitions like Stirling and CBS. While we certainly realize many benefits of scale, after much analysis and consultation with external advisors, we've now come to a decision to explore our options for these businesses.
The capital intensity in a lower margin, volatile sales cycle business has not been beneficial to our core growth rate and corporate profitability and has not placed us in the peer group where we belong. With the global supply chain negative impact still ongoing and the volatile market dynamics in play, the expected merits of these two acquisitions have failed to materialize to the extent we expected. I take my job responsibility to create shareholder value very seriously and am supportive of the board and our leadership team's collective decision to explore a course change. To support these explorations, we've engaged a strategic advisory firm to manage outreach to and inbound inquiries from parties interested in licensing our IP and/or acquiring these businesses.
To be clear, our strategic decision is to explore options, one of which is to potentially put our innovative CBS and Stirling businesses in the hands of other parties that can better leverage their operations, supply chain, and cost structure to maximize their business model. If divesting is ultimately the best option and we complete both, we will have returned BioLife to a higher multiple peer group with a portfolio of leading high margin, high growth, recurring revenue products and services that are class defining. We believe any potential divestitures will preserve and enhance the synergies among our biopreservation media products, Sexton and cell processing tools, EVO cold chain management service, and SciSafe biologic storage services. This potential portfolio optimization will help us to return to an enhanced gross and EBITDA margin company with industry-leading growth.
It will also importantly and significantly reduce working capital cash burn, providing more flexibility to invest in and build upon our potent complementary offering where everything fits. It's clear when we look at these assets on a go-forward basis that our exploration of strategic alternatives is the right decision at the right time for the right reasons for the company and for shareholders. We recognize that it's frustrating when strategy and tactics fail to produce anticipated results. As business people, we work for you, the shareholders, and we must be thoughtful and decisive. In our view, looking at the key financial metrics, we've built an incredibly powerful company.
Going forward, acquiring additional high margin, recurring revenue businesses still make strategic and economic sense. Our learnings from these two deals will be applied in the future so that we focus only on high margin, high growth businesses that can deliver additive recurring revenue. To conclude, I'd like to acknowledge the sustained improvement efforts of our leadership team, middle management, and line workers at CBS and Stirling. We'll put these assets in the best shape ever from the perspectives of quality, operations, supply chain, financial accounting, CRM, HR systems, and sales and marketing. The R&D activities have been focused and well-managed through a rigorous stage gate review and approval process. Without this work, we would not be in a strong position to explore strategic alternatives.
We appreciate and recognize that operating through a potential divestiture process can lead to uncertainty for our team members and customers. I'm proud and grateful for their dedication and support. Our team can count on us to retain talent and reward loyalty and results. Our customers can count on us to continue to produce and deliver high-quality products. I'll switch back to discussing our Q1 performance. The team continued to gain new CGT and biopharma customers, driving continued adoption of our cell processing and storage services platforms, while our freezer platform experienced similar disruptions that others have reported in recent quarters. Turning to Q1 revenue and customer highlights, total revenue was $37.7 million, representing a 4% increase over Q1 2022.
Excluding COVID-related revenue from Q1 last year, total revenue growth was 16%, driven by a 28% increase in biopreservation media revenue. In Q1, we sold and shipped products or provided services to 197 new unique customer sites across our three products and services platforms. A large portion of our total revenue continues to come from existing customers as we penetrate deeper and pitch our integrated solutions to take more share of their spend for manufacturing, storage, and distribution products and services. In each of the last five quarters, we gained over 150 new customer sites, building a phenomenal pipeline of early-stage users that we will carefully nurture and support to drive future growth.
New Q1 customer sites by product and service line included nine more now using biopreservation media, five new ThawSTAR users, 17 new EVO cold chain end users, 15 new cryogenic freezer and accessory customer sites, 121 new Stirling ULT freezer and accessory customer sites, 22 new BioStorage customers, and eight new cell processing customers now using Sexton products. For our cell processing platform in Q1, we received confirmation that our solutions will be used in at least 20 additional clinical trials for new cell or gene therapies. We estimate that our biopreservation media products have been used in or are planned to be used in over 630 customer clinical applications, and our Sexton cell processing tools are in about 140.
For both biopreservation media and Sexton products, we also remain confident that each customer clinical application, if approved, could generate annual revenue in a range of $500,000-$2 million. To date, our cell processing solutions are used in 14 approved therapies, including the recently approved Omisirge by Gamida Cell. We expect to be able to continue to take share from home-brew preservation cocktails as awareness grows of the critical role our engineered media formulations play in reducing risk for CGT companies. I'll reiterate the five strong catalysts we expect to support our growth estimates, since each will increase the number of manufactured doses and hence the demand for our biopreservation media, Sexton cell processing solutions, EVO cold chain rentals, and SciSafe storage services. Number one, new de novo CGT approvals. two, approvals of existing commercial therapies in new geographies.
Three, approvals of existing commercial therapies in new indications. Four, approvals of existing commercial therapies as first or second-line treatment. Five, the eventual shift to allogeneic therapies. Turning to our storage and storage services platform, which includes EVO cold chain rentals and SciSafe storage services, we gained 39 new customer sites in Q1, 22 for biologic storage services and 17 for EVO. On the SciSafe side of the platform, we also continued to penetrate further in existing customers and have a very strong pipeline of high-value, long-term contract opportunities. We expect another banner year for SciSafe. On the EVO cold chain management side of the platform, we continue to drive the business, as evidenced by a 135% increase in quarterly shipments, specifically of approved cell therapy products.
As we've reported before, evaluations and validation shipments by leading CGT companies are ongoing, and we expect continued adoption. One global pharma company has confirmed that upon a completed successful validation, they intend to switch up to 100% of both of their approved cell therapy shipments from the leading provider over to our EVO platform early next year. This is excellent market validation, as internally, we modestly model a 50/50 split of shipments between EVO and the incumbent. Finally, our freezers and ThawSTAR systems platform. We shipped first-time orders to 141 new customer sites, including 121 now using Stirling products. Customers continue to recognize the value proposition of our freezer offerings based on tight temperature regulation, reduced power consumption, reduced heat generation, and less noise pollution, as these support their goal of reducing the negative environmental impact of their operations.
Q1 revenue was lumpy and off pace due to the now well-understood tightening biotech capital equipment funding and delayed purchase decisions due to economic uncertainty. On a positive note, we have a strong opportunity pipeline of potential Stirling freezer orders forecasted to close this year. I'll turn the call back over to Troy to present our financials for Q1. Troy?
Thank you, Mike.
Total revenue for the first quarter of 2023 was $37.7 million, representing a 4% increase over Q1 of 2022. Excluding COVID-related revenue from Q1 2022, growth was 16%, which was driven by a 28% increase in biopreservation media revenue. There was no COVID-related revenue in Q1 2023 compared to 10% of total revenue in Q1 2022. Cell processing platform revenue was $19 million, up 27% over the same period in 2022. Storage and storage services platform revenue was $5.7 million, down 5% over the same period in 2022. Excluding COVID-related revenue from Q1 2022, revenue in Q1 2023 increased 98%. Freezers and thaw systems platform revenue was $13 million, down 15% over the same period in 2022.
Excluding COVID-related revenue from Q1 2022, revenue in Q1 2023 decreased 12%. Adjusted gross margin for the first quarter of 2023 was 37%, compared with 33% for the first quarter of 2022 and 32% for the fourth quarter of 2022. The positive impact sequentially and compared to prior year was primarily due to product mix and lower inventory write-off charges, partially offset by lower gross margins at SciSafe due to the decrease in COVID-related revenue without an associated decrease of infrastructure costs. GAAP operating expenses for Q1 2023 were $51.3 million versus $44.2 million in Q1 2022. Adjusted operating expenses for Q1 2023 totaled $25.5 million, compared with $20.1 million in Q1 2022.
The increase in operating expenses was primarily driven by increased headcount, consulting fees, and infrastructure costs to support our long-term growth objectives. Our adjusted operating loss for the first quarter of 2023 was $11.4 million, compared with $8.3 million in Q1 2022. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2023 was -$1.9 million, compared with -$ 1.1 million for the first quarter of 2022. In Q1 2023, we had non-recurring expenses of approximately $3 million, consisting of strategic consulting fees, a planned severance payment for our former COO, indirect taxes, and a discrete bad debt write-off. Excluding these non-recurring expenses, adjusted EBITDA would have been + $1.1 million. We expect adjusted EBITDA improvement throughout the year, resulting in full year 2023 positive adjusted EBITDA.
Our cash and marketable securities balance at March 31, 2023, was $56.9 million, compared with $64.1 million at December 31, 2022. Taking into consideration our adjusted EBITDA of - $1.9 million, cash use in Q1 2023 was primarily related to unfavorable working capital adjustments of $840,000, largely due to the timing of raw material deliveries related to biopreservation media, capital expenditures of $3.3 million, and purchases of assets held for rent of $1 million. Turning to 2023 revenue guidance, management is reaffirming full year guidance is expected to be in the range of $188 million-$202 million, reflecting year-over-year and organic growth of 16%-25%. Excluding COVID-related revenue, year-over-year growth of 26%-35%.
Revenue guidance for 2023 does not include any COVID-related revenue. Total revenue expectations for 2023 include the following platform contributions. Cell processing platform, $89 million-$93 million, an increase of 30%-35% over 2022. Storage and storage services platform, $26.5 million-$30 million, an increase of 0%-13% over 2022. Excluding COVID-related revenue, year-over-year growth of 64%-86%. Freezers and thaw systems platform, $72.5 million-$79 million, an increase of 9%-18% over 2022. Excluding COVID-related revenue, year-over-year growth of 13%-23%. Finally, in terms of our share count, as of May 10th, we had 43.5 million shares issued and outstanding and 46.3 million shares on a fully diluted basis. I'll turn the call to Mike.
Thanks, Troy. I'd like to summarize four key takeaways from Q1 and today's call. First, BioLife Solutions is a critical, highly trusted tools and services provider to the cell and gene therapy industry. We've built a valuable portfolio of solutions that's helped CGT developers increase their likelihood of success by reducing risk in their manufacturing, storage, and distribution workflows. Number two, demand for our portfolio of class-defining bioproduction tools and services remains strong, and it's important to remember that we're still in the early phase of CGT approvals and the growth of this exciting industry. We are very well entrenched and intent on securing and maintaining a position as a premier enabling CGT tools and services provider. Number three, our decision to explore strategic alternatives for our two freezer businesses was made carefully after much analysis and consultation with our board and external advisors.
We're keenly focused on options to reposition our portfolio only on the high margin, high growth, recurring revenue streams that define us. Number four. Order volume to date so far in Q2 is strong across our portfolio. For the rest of 2023, we will focus on running the business efficiently and managing the exploration of strategic alternatives for our freezer businesses. I'll turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions. Mallory?
At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star one with your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Jacob Johnson with Stephens.
Hey, Mike and Troy. Good afternoon. Mike, maybe starting where you did... Hey, guys. Mike, starting where you started on the call today, just on the strategic alternatives for the freezer businesses. You outlined a couple of options, but it seems like a potential sale top of mind. Could you just talk about how you'd handicap the potential outcomes from the strategic review and maybe any kind of thoughts on the timeline around that?
Yeah. Thanks, Jacob. Well, I wanna be really clear that it's not a foregone conclusion that divesting is the only thing we're looking at or the only outcome that could materialize. We have a number of things we're looking at, and it is still pretty early. We've got a great advisory firm helping us navigate this, and for us, it's just early, and we're all about, you know, obviously picking the best option that creates the most shareholder value. Too soon to tell.
Okay
... in terms of a timeline, Jacob, when something might happen. Yeah.
Got it. Fair enough. Thanks, Mike. Maybe the other question just around that. You know, in the press release, you reiterated the $250 million in revenue, 50% gross margin, 30% EBITDA targets. Obviously, if you were to divest the freezer business, you know, that would be a chunk of revenue that would probably make that difficult. I guess I'm more curious on the other side of things. You know, you highlighted the profitability of the underlying business. Kind of any kind of commentary you could give us on just kinda how much the freezers are weighing on profitability right now?
It's a really good question, Jacob. Appreciate you asking. Well, clearly, if we were to divest one or both, we'd have to issue some updated not only guidance but also submit to long-term financial aspirational goals, which we would do once we had a clearer vision of how things would shake out. To the last comment that you made, to the extent the freezers are weighing down the profitability, it is material. I mean, I'll just say that with full potency. It's a material weigh down relative to the other parts of the business.
Okay. And then Mike, maybe last question. You know, some other companies have reported, the starting season, obviously the macro's been a headwind, and you talked about that with regards to freezers. As it pertains to China, I think that's an area where maybe you saw some traction from on the distributor side of things. Have you seen anything from your distributors that would suggest any weakness out of China, as it maybe relates to the media business?
Not at all yet. In fact, if I just think about the last, I don't know, couple of clinical support engagements that Dr. Mathew, our CSO, is involved in, they are from China. I don't have any read-throughs from Marcus or the sales team that the indirect sales in that part of the world in APAC are soft sequentially or year-over-year. No. To the contrary.
Got it. Thanks for taking the questions, Mike.
Thanks, Jacob.
Next question comes from Thomas Flaten with Lake Street Capital Markets.
Hey, good afternoon, guys. I appreciate you taking the questions.
Hi, Thomas.
Hey. Sticking with the concept of the macro, given the softness in freezer sales in the first quarter, just wanted to get, or maybe you can help us contextualize some of those macro headwinds, given that you're keeping the guide as is, for that segment of the business?
Thomas, and that's a great place to go to. You know, we certainly were looking at a lot of factors relative to the guide for this year, and I'm happy to tell you that just to expand a little bit a comment I made on my prepared remarks that when we look at the pipeline of mostly ULT freezers that are classified as high confidence to close this year, it's a significant number. I mean, it's a big, big number. It's much bigger than I thought, and that's not all the opportunities. Those are just the ones that have made it to the stage where it's considered high confidence to close. You know, and we're not even halfway done through the year.
On the basis of that, with one soft quarter, it would not have been prudent for us to cut the guide in the freezers and hence the overall guide. As we stand here right now on this call on May 10th, I'm confident we're gonna hit that number, and we're gonna come into the range of the total revenue. Yeah, if not for the latter, if that not had materialized, we'd probably be having a different conversation.
Got it. I don't know how much you can say about the large pharma customer that you guys highlighted in the press release. I'm curious, maybe you could walk us through kinda some of the, I guess, the wins you had. I'm sure there was more than one factor that allowed them to flip from the incumbent to you guys. Any color you can give us on that sales process and kinda what feedback they provided to you?
Yeah. In a word, I'd say thorough, or another word I'd say vigorous. Yeah. Not to the pipe cleaner process we went through t wo years ago with the other leading CGT company with two approved therapies, but yeah, this one is pretty intense, and we're at the right place in the organization in terms of the decision makers on their side, and we've got, as you can imagine, an army of folks on our side who are meeting with this customer, not weekly, but almost. There's a project plan that's being marched against and a series of go, no-go sorta eval validation steps.
When pressed specifically, and I asked our team, "Hey, if this does go well and our way, what would we expect in terms of the split of shipments?" The direct feedback from the customer was up to 100%, which is much higher than we anticipated 'cause as I mentioned a few minutes ago, we model 50/50 as sort of a modest assumption. If this goes, that's gonna be very meaningful for us and now obviously very meaningful for the incumbent in terms of the impact on them.
Got it. Then one quick final one for me. Now that you're, and I think you said 14 approved cell and gene therapies now that you guys are involved with, has that allowed you to validate the revenue range of $500,000-$2 million that we've talked about for a few years? Any suggestion that that might not be the right range of revenues for commercial products?
Well, appreciate you asking. I still think it's probably a little low on the high end. It's still early. Again, the ones we're in, they're really, with a couple of exceptions, they're pretty recently approved. We just need a few quarters of their track record to see what's gonna happen.
Great. Appreciate you taking the questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas.
Our next question comes from Chad Wiatrowski with TD Cowen.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. Just one on OpEx. How do we think about OpEx, sort of the cadence throughout the rest of the year, and maybe how the strategic alternatives of the freezer business could impact that?
Yeah. As far as OpEx for the rest of the year, I did mention some non-recurring charges in Q1. If you were to back those out and then grow it, not quite in line with the revenue growth, but again, growing to support our revenue growth, that's a good way to look at the OpEx. Then as far as.
Yeah, just.
Go ahead.
Yep. Just on the macro headwinds, again, obviously seeing sort of the CapEx issues, from biotech and pharma, but on the R&D side, are you seeing, like, any delays in clinical trial timelines or potential headwinds on that front?
You know, fair question, Chad, and I can't speak specifically to it, but I would certainly support that we are seeing some of that. The thing to remember is, in the early stages, these aren't meaningful revenue contributors. It's just not really an impact. They don't buy that much in the early days because the trial enrollment is pretty small, right?
Yep. Thanks for the questions. Appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from Paul Knight with KeyBanc. Paul, go ahead with your question.
Hey, Mike. Hey, Troy. How are you?
Hey, Paul. Good to hear you.
Now, I know with the Stirling and CBS, one of the intentions was to create some cross-selling synergy. What are your thoughts now? Are you changing? Will you change the way the Cell Processing Platform products and the services products are sold? What do you plan to do on any channel marketing modifications? That's my first question.
Good place to start, Paul. Yeah. Well, I think what we've learned, one of the key learning takeaways is that, you know, despite our deep contacts in the C-suite in that, there are different decision makers, folks who buy capital equipment, particularly downstream as opposed to the folks that we're closer to, which are in the processing upstream side of the house. You know, our assumption was that we could leverage those relationships. My sense is now, just to be practical about it, freezers are seen maybe inappropriately, but they're largely seen as commodities. Then those are sort of relegated to the domain of the procurement people as opposed to technical buyers or scientific buyers. That just kinda is what it is.
With respect to what would we do to change it, well, we really have to think about the current distributors, how productive they are, where are their strengths, where do they lie? Are there alternative distributors? If we think about a potential to divest the businesses, what's the channel those companies have and how strong are they and whatnot. Then there's also, you know, this idea to out-license the technology to someone who just embeds our IP in their own freezers. There's a lot of stuff swirling, and I'm just thankful we've got some really smart folks here and on the outside helping us navigate the options.
The other part I'm sure is going on is Sexton and the services side seem to have exceeded your expectations here over the last couple of years. Could you talk to Sexton and the potential there, specifically, per therapy again? You know, what's the magic sauce at services?
Sure. Well, with Sexton, a few minutes ago, I said that we would anticipate that the expected annual revenue range for Sexton for an approved customer therapy is just like it is for biopreservation media. It's $500,000 -$2 million each annually, and we're in about 140 customer clinical applications with Sexton and in three approved therapies already. That just fits perfectly. It really does. I just got a text from Sean Werner, Dr. Werner, who was running Sexton, who now, you know, works for AB, and he's the CTO of that platform. We've just got a great piece of good news from a large current customer about how they're gonna greatly exceed their forecast for this year. It just could not have come at a better time.
Again, Sexton's gonna have a banner year if all things hold. Really, really strong. As far as the secret sauce, well, the CellSeal vial is proprietary design and has its own unique benefits of ease of use in filling and the proprietary vent, and it's just really lends itself for small volume doses where you have a great alternative versus putting a little bit of fluid in a big bag and everything that goes wrong with that or could go wrong with that. On the HPL media side at Sexton, there are some quality and scientific differentiation relative to the other HPL products that are out there, specific to the way that we make the HPL media in Indy. Then the filling machines are just really cool. The current next gen fill machine is agnostic.
You can bring your own bags and vials and other final containers to the party. It's just really lending itself to ushering that degree of automation. I think just to put the bow on the whole Sexton, you've heard us talk about, you know, tooling up or starting up a media manufacturing line in Indy at Sexton for our non-core current BAPA-produced media products, and that's going really well. all in all, just the whole team at Sexton is a perfect fit and can't say enough good about how that one's really worked out.
Okay. Will ThawSTAR Bio be part of freeze and thaw?
Yes, not to divest we're... Potentially divest. Thaw stays with us regardless. Thaw stays with us.
Okay. Thanks, Mike.
Sure.
Your final question comes from Yuan Zhi with B. Riley.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking our questions. Mike and-
Hi, Yuan.
Hi, guys. Can you guys clarify what was the internal guidance on media, freezer and other business segments? Can you elaborate on what are the factors causing, you know, the difference between reported number and the prior guidance or internal guidance in terms of both revenue and gross margin?
Sorry, Yuan, just to clarify, are you asking me to tell you what our internal plan was for that platform?
Internal guidance for media, freezer and other business segments. What was the reason to cause the difference between these two?
Well, okay. All we speak to is the external revenue guidance by platform, which you've seen, which Troy reiterated on the call just a few minutes ago. As it relates to the shortfall in freezer revenue, that's all the factors we've been talking about. There is this macro, very well understood now, well-appreciated slowdown in biotech funding, hitting capital equipment much harder than disposable or recurring revenue streams. That, in concert with just the general global economic uncertainty, is causing these large global pharma companies to really take a look at, and in many cases, pause their purchases for large CapEx pieces of gear. Those two things alone is clearly how we speak to that miss there on freezers in Q1.
I have to say, as I did a few minutes ago, on balance, you know, the opportunity pipeline that we have for freezers for the rest of the year, the high confidence deals, it's a big number. If that materializes, and then we sort of, kind of replicate that for the last six months of the year, then we're gonna be in good shape.
Got it. Thanks for that clarification. Assuming you guys continue to keep freezer business at the moment, are you still on track to reach 50% adjusted gross margin? Can you clarify which factor had an effect in the last quarter, and what is the gross margin in 1Q without freezer business?
Yeah. We don't do that kind of modeling externally, Yuan. Clearly, we know that, but we speak to revenue and we on a platform basis, and then we speak to the midterm aspirational goal. I think I would just, I would constrain my remarks to what I just said about the downturn in cap equipment funding, coupled with the economic uncertainty that's causing some orders to get delayed. With respect to our confidence to hit our midterm aspirational goals, well, so far, as we sit here with just one quarter in the books, yes.
As I mentioned earlier, if we do go down the path and actually consummate the divestiture of one or both of these businesses, then obviously we're gonna remodel internally and remodel guidance externally and reshape whatever midterm financial aspirational goals we might put out there. Okay?
Yeah, got it. Thanks, Mike.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from Carl Byrnes with Northland Capital Markets.
Thanks for the question. Assuming that you get the divestiture of Stirling and CBS done, would you expect that you'd be able to re-accelerate your M&A strategy, you know, focusing obviously on the high growth, high margin segments as you know, you had done very successfully prior to the Stirling acquisition? Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Carl. Hello, a really good question. You're getting to sort of a key dynamic going on here. First of all, I'd say again, just to remind everybody, it's not divesting is the only option, it's one of several. If we were to go down that road and complete those from a management bandwidth free-up perspective, you got it, full stop. We would be much less encumbered, and we'd be focusing on, you know, external acquisition targets. Obviously, the internal R&D that's going on, the products that fit, would be preserved, but we would certainly have more bandwidth to go look for other things that look like the way we are now and what we're traditionally really, really good at and what we really understand. Sure, you bet.
Excellent. Thanks so much.
You're welcome, Carl.
We have no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mike Rice, Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.
Thanks, Mallory. I wanna thank everyone, for your interest in BioLife and your support. We do look forward to sharing our Q2 numbers and our results with you. Good evening.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.