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As public and private organizations around the world struggle with lost COVID-19 vaccine doses, Sofrigam and Logmore partner up to save vaccines from spoiling with smart temperature-controlled packaging.
The transportation and distribution of the much sought-after COVID-19 vaccines has caused significant challenges all over the world after its first release in late December 2020. The challenging requirements for these highly temperature sensitive vaccines caused inevitable product loss (these temperature controlled vaccines cause regular waste), as authorities from the United States to India report unexpectedly high numbers of spoiled vaccines.
“Mismanaging the cold chain leads to regular and significant waste of medication”. Sofrigam, a 40-year veteran in the development of qualified pharmaceutical transport solutions has based their operations on those words, building solutions to minimize medical waste.
To mitigate product loss that is currently experienced on a global scale, Sofrigam is now expanding their line of product services to develop qualified smart packaging transport systems for use in pharmaceutical logistics.The challenges in transporting and distributing the vaccines has come as no surprise to cold chain logistics professionals. While only the Pfizer vaccine requires a steady deep freeze temperature of -70°C maintained with dry ice, the competing vaccines all need to stay in -20°C freeze as well.
“The volume is unprecedented. To achieve global herd immunity, the world needs at least 15 billion doses of vaccines. That would be in an ideal world without any vaccines wasted at all. It’s absolutely crucial to minimize the amount of waste,” says Erik Lehikoinen, global SVP of sales at Logmore. Lehikoinen has a background in container logistics.
Global cold chain infrastructure could hardly support the volume of vaccine deployment at the end of 2020. Organizations throughout the cold chain and logistic spectrum had invested heavily in meeting this critical moment for present and future vaccine deployment while simultaneously trying to sustain the usual cold chain demand from transporting food, chemicals, and other pharmaceutical products.
”Partnering with Logmore is the logical continuation of our promise to our customers and the end user. Our mission is to offer stakeholders within the medical and health sector peace of mind regarding vaccine efficacy while meeting global demands for Covid-19 vaccination initiatives," says Laurence Labranque, VP at Sofrigam.
