Liventa and Cryoport Team to Streamline Orthopedic Biologics Shipping and Storage

Liventa Bioscience (formerly AFcell Medical) and Cryoport Inc. have partnered to serve different points of orthopedic care delivery with West Conshohocken, Pa.-based Liventa’s cell-based, advanced biologics tissue forms.

The agreement combines Lake Forest, Calif.-based Cryoport’s proprietary, purpose-built cold chain logistics solutions for cell-based and advanced biologic tissue forms with Liventa Bioscience’s distribution capability to “point-of-use,” U.S.-based orthopedic care providers.

In 2013, approximately $230 million of cell-based biologic products for orthopedic uses were shipped to hospitals and other clinics using dry ice and hospital-based cryogenic freezers. Cryoport’s solution, based on its Cryoport Express liquid nitrogen dry vapor shippers, eliminates the need for dry-ice shipping and hospital based cryogenic freezers.

As a result of this alliance, Liventa will provide Cryoport Express Shippers and Cryoport’s
Logistics Management Platform—called Cryoportal—to biologics suppliers within the orthopedic arena. This logistics system—coupled with the small, portable cold-chain containers—will enable
Liventa to better serve small or mobile clinics, pharmacies, family practice and orthopedic specialty care providers, company officials said. Surgical centers and hospitals also benefit from better logistics and the elimination of issues surrounding dry ice transport and storage.

“After careful research, we concluded that Cryoport’s logistics solutions, which include both shipping and information logistics, was by far the most advanced solution available for both our AmnioClear cryopreserved tissue products and other cryopreserved cellular products,” said Robin Young, Liventa’s CEO. “Cryoport’s system opens up every corner of the orthopedic industry to
advanced biologic tissue and cell forms.”

Cryoport’s technology eliminates the need for hazardous dry ice or capital investment in cryogenic freezers.

“Liventa Bioscience comes at a very important time in this early stage of applied stem cell therapy with its AmnioClear platform,” said Cryoport’s CEO Jerrell Shelton. “We are proud to be a strategic partner providing our unparalleled temperature controlled logistics solutions to support this revolutionary company. This partnership is positioned to bring Liventa’s AmnioClear products and other advanced biologic solutions to an estimated 108 million patients annually who suffer from knee, hip, extremity, spine and other orthopedic disabilities.”

According to officials from both companies, Cryoport’s logistics solutions plus Liventa’s distribution bridges two powerful trends in orthopedics: the increasingly diversified orthopedic point-of-care delivery and the rising use of cell-based advanced biologics.

Orthopedic care is now provided in offices of the family practitioner, the internist, the orthopedist’s ambulatory surgical center, the pain management clinic, the pharmacy, the physical medicine specialist, the rheumatologist, the sports medicine clinic and the chiropractor. Among established orthopedic programs, hospital networks are the fastest growing practice sector in outpatient orthopedic care.

Most of these service providers do not have cryogenic freezers or the infrastructure to handle cell-based tissue forms. Even when there is a cryogenic freezer, space is at a premium. This new strategic agreement opens up the entire range of orthopedic markets and care providers to cell-based, advanced biologic tissue forms intended to promote healing and provide relief not available through other treatments.

“Cell-based therapies and tissue forms such as Liventa’s AmnioClear are providing a sea change in medicine just as Amgen and biotechnology did 30 years ago,” said Richard Rathmann, Cryoport’s board chairman. “This alliance reflects Cryoport’s critical role as a solutions provider in the preservation and safe transport of these novel, life-altering therapies.”

Liventa Biosciences is a biotechnology company focused on innovative allograft tissue from living donors. The company’s focus is orthopedic biologics. Products include human collagen membrane sheets derived from placental tissues, flowable wound coverings, synovial fluid transplants and innovative new soft tissue repair implants.