Innovations safeguarding pharma cold chain

 Innovations safeguarding pharma cold chain

The pandemic has fast-tracked the need for innovation and the increased need for transformations in the healthcare sector, especially in the transportation, logistics and last mile delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine. As transportation of medicines and pharmaceuticals is increasing due to the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine, container solution providers around the world who deliver and process temperature-controlled pharma products have been rising to the challenge posed by the pharma industry in several ways.

In line with this, va-Q-tec – a German tech firm that sells products for temperature controlling and insulation-vacuum, insulation panels and phase change materials has signed a deal with Turkish Cargo to deploy its thermal container va-Q-tainer on the airline’s fleet. 

The container has a special low-temperature service free of dry ice down to -50°C, which is best suited for carrying and transporting the Covid-19 vaccines. va-Q-tainers can maintain various temperature ranges between -70 °C upto +25 °C for several days inside the container. In addition, the underlying production processes have been certified as climate-neutral, according to the UN Greenhouse Gas Protocol since 2020. 

Christopher J. Storch, the global head of sales, va-Q-tec Group spoke about further digitising the process and said, “Currently, we are developing a smart va-Q-tainer which will be launched soon. It will be equipped with various digital features, such as real-time devices that display various parameters such as the current position of the container, outside and inside temperature, humidity and information about shocks and tilt. This will enable va-Q-tec and all partners to further enhance the visibility and integrity of the temperature-controlled supply chain. Additionally, we are optimising the container utilisation rate by working with various tools like artificial intelligence and forecast tools which allow us to expand our TempChain network to be closer to the actual shippers and improve our logistics planning.”

Meanwhile, the company’s digital service solution va-Q-nection offers customers 100 percent transparency of the TempChain at its box rental programme. It consists of the intelligent networking of a smart box, an app and the advanced TempChain Service Software. All data along the audit trail is protected against falsification with the help of va-Q-tec's blockchain technology.

Incidentally, December 2020, CSafe Global had launched the first shipment visibility system for active containers. CSafe’s CEO Patrick Schafer, explains, “We continue to retrofit our existing fleet with the integrated tracking device and every new container we manufacture has the tracking device built-in. While the device will not transmit data during the flight, it does immediately download all data monitored during flight once the plane is on the ground. During land transit, the device continuously delivers location and condition data to the cloud-based visibility platform which provides real-time alerts and monitoring to ensure end-to-end visibility. Customers can see route deviations, ambient and internal temperature data, when container doors are opened, shock and tilt events and more.  This year we are expanding this offering into both our parcel and cell and gene product lines.”

Active containers are already equipped with a variety of sensors and allow the user to gain insight into the temperature levels during transport. DoKaSch Opticooler RAP has a volume of 6.57 cubic metres with a maximum payload capacity of 4,893 kilogrammes. While Opticooler RKN is a smart solution developed for compact freight with a loading volume of 1.88 cubic metres and a payload of 918 kilogrammes. Both the containers maintain a temperature range of +2° to +8°C / +15° to +25°C.

Andreas Seitz, the managing director of DoKaSch, says, “Furthermore, our containers are under constant surveillance by the airlines. In turn, it is possible to scan the temperature development right after a flight, which already provides the users with high safety and reliability levels. Temperature-regulated packaging solutions are often not used for end-to-end transport; they are only a part of the cold chain and the actual tracking is more important for the transported cargo. Nonetheless, we are working on projects to provide seamless end-to-end capabilities for our Opticoolers to provide our customers with additional transparency and safety.”

In May, global air transportation solutions leader Envirotainer, which had already facilitated the transportation of more than 450 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, launched Releye RLP30000PC container for transporting pharmaceutical products, and was built on 5 pillars of control, monitoring, value, autonomy, and sustainability. The unit uses rechargeable batteries, with a single battery chargeable to power the system for over 170 hours and it can contain up to three Euro pallets stacked 132 cm high. The product was developed taking into account the opinions of several domain experts in the temperature-controlled air freight industry based on the challenges they need to solve.