A cold chain is a management of temperature-sensitive products which make up the supply chain. This form of supply chain is very important in the pharmaceutical industry as well as other industries that require products be kept under constant refrigeration from start to finish. The quality of these products will be compromised if cold storage isn’t maintained throughout the logistics process. Here are three reasons why pharmaceutical cold chains should be considered with care.
Firstly, pharmaceutical companies have an obligation to think about patient safety. Aside from this there are 3 major issues to pay attention to. The first is regarding increase regulatory scrutiny. Amongst reports of substandard refrigeration, regulatory bodies have increased their control on pharmaceutical cold chains. Those involved need to comply with specific regulations and provide evidence of their compliancy. All parties involved need be able to answer questions also.
Secondly, there has been an increase in biopharmaceutical products entering the marketing with new advances paving the way to new treatments. The majority of these new drugs entering the drug market will require the use of pharmaceutical cold chains to be able to replicate suitable conditions for safe storage of these drugs. Drugs are becoming increasingly sensitive to environmental conditional and therefore require a high degree of care through the pharmaceutical cold chain.
Finally, there are new drugs that must be kept at a temperature close to room temperature. This is storage between temperatures 20 and 25 degrees with 10% leeway either way. These types of drugs are less sensitive to external environment effects; however, care should still be taken with the pharmaceutical cold chain to make sure regulations are adhered to.
Cold chains must be properly managed and maintained to extend the life and safety of the contents. CRS cold storage provides high quality cold storage products and pharmaceutical cold chain solutions to a range of companies in the pharmaceutical and medical industries. For more information, please visit www.crscoldstorage.co.uk.