Insulated Products Corporation (IPC) DS Smith Pharma. In the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, readiness to respond fast and industry expertise have become paramount in making healthcare products available. The DS Smith Pharma Business Unit and a worldwide network of designers can help deliver faster innovative and sustainable packaging solutions to the healthcare industry, through both the traditional or e-commerce distribution channels. Speed is key Fast project development has been a game changer during the pandemic. Our packaging designers across DS Smith’s markets have been requested to provide crucial support in an accelerated mode. Among the different projects, we can find the development of urgent packaging concepts for life-saving products such as vaccines, diagnostics and hospital medical devices.
Additionally, due to the current limitations for physical interactions, we have created virtual collaboration solutions for an unrivalled customer experience. Centralized pharma and medical expertise Focus on vaccines Focus on medical devices. Sofrigam. Rueil Malmaison, France: – Temperature-controlled logistics and pharmaceutical cold chain packaging specialist Sofrigam S.A. is ready to provide cold chain and cool chain logistics solutions to meet the ultra-low temperature challenges of NextGen vaccines to combat COVID-19. The latest messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines need to be stored at ultra-low temperature to preserve the fragile RNA fragments that target the ‘spikes’ of the SARS COV-2 variant 19 coronavirus. The Pfizer/BioNTech requires long term storage at -70 degrees Celsius and can only be removed from ULT up to four times without risk of losing efficacy.
Cost-effective ULT transport Pfizer is developing a special transport ‘suitcase’ for its vaccine that can keep up to 5,000 doses of the vaccine under ULT cold chain in dry ice for up to ten days, expected to retail at around $6,675 per unit. Sofrigam also provides a wide range of insulated bags and pouches for ‘last mile’ cool chain distribution and delivery of refrigerated vaccines. Intelsius. Robopac. Sealed Air. Softbox. Unitax & Schaumaplast. Logistics company Unitax uses Schaumaplast cold-chain packaging made from BASF's biomass-balanced Styropor® BMB in COVID-19 vaccine logistics. Under the name Thermocon, Schaumaplast develops and produces passive—i.e. non-electric—cooling systems for the pharmaceutical industry.
The lightweight thermal boxes can be fitted with special cooling elements for almost any temperature range and for different volumes, the company says. This flexibility in terms of size and cooling range is becoming ever more important in coronavirus vaccine logistics, as vaccines in temperature ranges of minus 70°C, minus 15°C to minus 25°C, and plus 2°C to plus 8°C increasingly have to be delivered at the same time. “Together with our customer Unitax, we can leverage the strengths of active and passive refrigerated transport. The boxes are made of biomass-balanced Styropor® from BASF and reportedly have an improved environmental profile.