Coldpack unveils thermal pouch for pharmaceuticals

Coldpack, a French producer of insulated packaging, has unveiled a thermal pharmaceutical pouch that uses its Airliner technology to ensure that the contents remain within the necessary temperature range of +2°C to +8°C or -18°C for frozen products during transportation.

Airliner is an inflatable insulating film made using DuPont's Surlyn material in factories in San Diego, US and Muenster, Germany. It consists of two layers separated by an aluminised honeycomb structure and easily converts a corrugated box into a cooler.

This combination of material and design, when filled with air, creates multiple compartments, known as baffles, which block calorie transfer to minimise all three types of heat transfer - radiation, convection and conduction.

Airliner preserves the temperature inside the pack, which means the inclusion of coolants such as gel packs or dry ice inside the Airliner can be used to implement an efficient and controlled cold-chain distribution. Coldpack says it is an alternative to flexible foams and polystyrene and provides a high-performance thermal barrier.

Airliner is also supplied flat, which means it takes up to 20 times less space than rigid foam packaging.

When ready to use, the Airliner is inflated using a variety of devices. Air is suitable for most uses, although specialist inert gases are also available to improve insulation efficiencies by a further 20%.

"With Coldpack's new pharmaceutical pouch, vaccine and biological materials shippers can trust that their valuable cargo will arrive protected and on temperature," said Etienne Snollaerts, chief executive of Coldpack.

"This enhanced product offering is an extension of our commitment consistently to deliver sustainable thermal insulated packaging solutions. The pharmaceutical pouch is the first of many new products Coldpack plans to debut in the coming year."

The pouch, re-usable for certain applications, can be used for transferring drugs to patients; hospital distribution and supply chains; pharmaceutical wholesale distribution and for shipping biological samples or other materials.

Founded in 2000 as Cargo Technology, the company began manufacturing Airliner in 2001 in the US. In 2003, Coldpack bought the Cargotech patent to have the product manufactured in France and in 2005 bought all of the Cargotech shares and became Coldpack. In 2008, Coldpack began production using the DuPont manufacturing process. US operations are now located in San Diego, California, with European offices in Paris, France.