Supporting “Last Mile” Delivery

Cold Chain Technologies, a leading global provider of reusable and single-use passive thermal assurance solutions for the shipment of temperature-sensitive products for the life sciences industry, announced today the launch of its COVID-19 Solutions portfolio for ensuring the required temperatures in the safe transport and storage of COVID-19 vaccines — right up to the point of use. Safeguarding the strict, ultra-cold temperature controls required for maintaining the integrity of the COVID-19 vaccines is critically important to the success of the massive distribution campaign and for bringing the nearly year-long pandemic to an end. Built on its deep expertise and more than 50 years of experience in safe and secure shipment of biomedical products, CCT’s new portfolio offers an array of solutions to meet the needs of storing and redistributing vaccines at various temperature ranges, especially as the vaccines are sent out for administration.

We’re proud to do our part in bringing this pandemic to an end by using our expertise to help ensure that the COVID-19 vaccines are safely transported, thawed and ready to administer — in the right quantity and at the right time,” said Ranjeet Banerjee, CEO of Cold Chain Technologies. “Unquestionably, the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan is an extremely significant supply chain challenge. But we’re heartened to see so many people and organizations coming together to make it happen. At Cold Chain Technologies, we’ll continue to apply our deep expertise and decades of experience to the success of this global effort. 

Temperature integrity is critical to the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, with both vaccines that have been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requiring transport and storage at ultra-cold temperatures. Compounding the temperature control challenges are real-world logistics. Not every center receiving COVID-19 vaccine shipments will have freezers for storing the Pfizer vaccine or refrigerators for storing the Moderna vaccine. What’s more, when the vaccines are sent out from centralized facilities — to nursing homes, assisted living communities and community activity centers, for instance — the cold chain in the distribution process could be broken if there is a lack of proper shipping equipment, leading to waste of an already constrained vaccine supply. These logistical issues are of particular concern in integrated healthcare delivery networks, in hotter regions and in remote communities that are harder to get to and where power may be limited or less reliable and where there is a lack of ultra-cold freezers and storage facilities.

CCT’s COVID-19 Solutions portfolio offers products that will help maintain and monitor required temperatures during transportation and both short- and long-term storage, up to and at the point of use. From its EcoFlex range of containers for the transport of vaccines at -20°C to conditioned phase-change refrigerants that help maintain storage temperature at refrigerated levels of 2-8°C to simple totes to near-real-time temperature monitoring and alerting capabilities using sensors embedded in specially designed thermal shippers and location tracking capabilities — CCT’s COVID-19 Solutions portfolio provides a reliable mix of products that help assure temperature integrity throughout the entire vaccine distribution chain.