Healthcare logistics and temperature-sensitive healthcare products
15 December 2021 by Edina GÁLFI
Prior reaching our cabinets, medicines need to go through a long journey from international pharmaceutical laboratories, producers of these medicines to drugstores, where you can buy it, via wholesalers-distributors or pharmaceutical depositaries.
Pharmaceuticals: to carry with care
As with foods, pharmaceuticals are run by many strict rules in terms of storage safety, transportation, delivery, etc. Therefore, medicines should not be exposed to too high nor to too low temperatures as their active substances could be altered and no longer effective for curing of diseases.
Temperature-controlled transports ensure that pharmaceuticals won’t be damaged through journey, regardless of the temperature outside the vehicle, whether summer or winter, as cold chain is secured. We can define 3 temperature ranges in medicines transportations, as follows:
- <-20°C
- +2°C / +8°C
- +15°C / +25°C
Today, we will pay attention to this last temperature range.
Although it may seem the simplest temperature range to keep, this “room temperature” or “ambient temperature” range is precisely the hardest one to keep. As a matter of fact, temperature of these pharmaceuticals must always be between +15°C / +25°C, whatever the temperature conditions outside are. This implies not only compensating hot air inflows in summer times but also cold air inflows in winter times. But how to do so with only one coolant?
Pharmaceuticals: to carry with care
Pharmaceuticals (or thermosensitive products) transportation is a real challenge. Not respecting good transport conditions could result in delivery failure in the event of non-compliant goods and in significant costs related to the financial losses.
No worries, OLIVO, expert in cold logistics solutions for 60+ years, has a solution for you: using its “ambient” eutectic plates at +21°C in its insulated containers. +21°C eutectic plates, after having been cooled down, will indeed compensate the heat inputs to keep the medicines below +25°C in summer, and they will, after having been warmed up, compensate the heat losses and maintain the temperature over +15°C in winter.
Transport of pharmaceuticals is legally framed worldwide by pharmaceutical laws (defining regulations on health products such as their conditions of production, of sale, of transportation and of storage) but also by the procedures of Good Distribution Practice (GDP). The GDP includes hygiene obligation and temperature tracking recommendations for medicines transportation. All OLIVO insulated containers are reusable and easy-to-care and thus compliant with cold chain and hygiene requirements. As regards temperature tracking, OLIVO, via its partners, offers several temperature tracking solutions. Please feel free to contact the team for more information on this matter.
Finally, as with foods, medicines are considered as perishable goods and therefore also framed by the ATP (Agreement on international Transportations of Perishable goods). OLIVO as an ATP compliant and certified supplier, only provides insulated ROLL and BAC with an ATP certification.
Transporting thermosensitive products in perfectly respecting cold chain requirements is one of OLIVO’s biggest priorities! The quality of the delivered thermosensitive items depends on the effectiveness of the insulated solutions used through transportation. High-end and reliable insulated solutions are therefore essential to make sure cold chain is preserved through journeys to pharmacies. OLIVO experts can ensure you a secured cold chain and a proper maintenance of these temperature ranges on both short and long distances (road, sea or air transportations) thanks to the 60+ years know-how and expertise of OLIVO in cold chain logistics.
Our technical sales team can help you defining the model of insulated container that meet the best your requirements and the number of eutectic plates to implement to make sure cold chain of your pharmaceuticals is perfectly preserved.
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