Repligen Closes $1.5 Billion BioLife Deal, Adding Cell Therapy Tools to Waltham Biotech Supplier

Repligen Corporation, the Waltham, Massachusetts, bioprocessing company, completed its roughly $1.5 billion acquisition of BioLife Solutions on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. The deal adds BioLife’s cell therapy storage and processing products, led by its CryoStor freezing media, to one of the Boston area’s biggest life sciences toolmakers, and BioLife’s stock no longer trades on its own.

Repligen-BioLife Deal at a Glance: Size, Dates and Terms

• Size: total enterprise value of about $1.5 billion, paid about 64% in Repligen stock and 36% in cash, according to the July announcement.
• Price per share: BioLife stockholders received $11.25 in cash plus 0.1442 Repligen shares for each BioLife share. At announcement, that was valued at $31.00 per share, a 24% premium to BioLife’s 90-day volume-weighted average price.
• Announced: July 22, 2026, with both boards unanimously approving.
• Closed: Oct. 6, 2026, inside the companies’ original target of the fourth quarter of 2026.
• Funding: the cash portion came from Repligen’s cash on hand. Repligen said it expected to keep more than $300 million in pro forma cash.
• Synergies: Repligen projected at least $20 million in cost savings in year one and at least $30 million in year two.

Who the Companies Are

Repligen makes equipment and consumables used to manufacture biologic drugs, with product lines in filtration and fluid management, chromatography, process analytics and proteins. Its customers are mainly drugmakers and contract manufacturers. The company is headquartered in Waltham, with most manufacturing in the United States plus sites in Estonia, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden.

BioLife Solutions, based in Bothell, Washington, supplies tools and services for cell and gene therapy. Its best-known product, CryoStor, is a medium used to preserve living cells while they are frozen, stored and shipped. Repligen says BioLife’s biopreservation products support 18 commercially approved therapies and most U.S. commercially sponsored trials of cell-based therapies. BioLife reported preliminary second-quarter 2026 revenue of $28.5 million, up 21% from a year earlier.

Context: Why Cell Therapy Tools Matter to Boston Biotech

Cell therapies, such as CAR-T treatments for blood cancers, are made from living cells that must be collected, processed, frozen and shipped without damage. That makes storage and handling products a recurring purchase for every program. Repligen said in July that commercial cell therapy revenue is projected to grow more than 20% a year through the end of the decade, and called BioLife’s business “deeply embedded” in that workflow.

Greater Boston is one of the world’s densest clusters of biotech companies developing these therapies, and local toolmakers like Repligen sell into that pipeline. The close comes during an active stretch for Massachusetts life sciences deals, including the Bambusa Therapeutics IPO. For broader Boston business coverage, see our Boston business news hub.

Impact: What Changes Now

With the deal closed, BioLife becomes part of Repligen, and BioLife’s former shareholders now hold Repligen stock. Repligen said the combined sales team will take BioLife’s products to more customers worldwide, including in the Asia Pacific region, while Repligen gains BioLife’s existing customer relationships in cell therapy.

Repligen said in July that it expects the deal to add to adjusted earnings per share by at least 5 cents in the first year and at least 25 cents in the second. It said it will give more detail on the acquisition’s effect on its 2026 outlook during its third-quarter 2026 earnings call. Neither company has announced job changes tied to the integration.

The deal does not change how individual therapies are approved or priced. Its main effect is on suppliers: a larger, Massachusetts-based company now sells both drug-manufacturing equipment and the cell preservation media many cell therapy makers depend on.

Advisors

Perella Weinberg Partners and Goldman Sachs served as financial advisors to Repligen, with Goodwin Procter as legal counsel. Centerview Partners advised BioLife, with K&L Gates as legal counsel.

Reactions

“BioLife’s highly-differentiated portfolio of products expands our presence in the rapidly growing cell therapy market,” Repligen president and chief executive Olivier Loeillot said in the Oct. 6 announcement. He said the companies spent months on an integration plan.

When the deal was announced in July, BioLife chairman and chief executive Roderick de Greef said Repligen’s “global commercial reach, complementary technologies and proven operating capabilities” made it “an ideal partner,” and that the deal gave BioLife stockholders “immediate cash value and the opportunity to participate in Repligen’s future growth.”

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Featured photo: MatasNavickas / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and resized.

Sources

• Repligen: Repligen Completes Acquisition of BioLife Solutions (Oct. 6, 2026)
• Repligen: Repligen to Acquire BioLife Solutions (July 22, 2026)
• SEC: Repligen Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1
• SEC: BioLife Solutions Form 8-K (July 2026)