Supporting pharmaceutical cold-chain distribution with precise temperature control

For pharmaceutical logistics providers, maintaining precise temperature conditions is essential throughout the cold chain. But temperature control is not only required for storing medicines. It is also critical when preparing the equipment used to transport them.

Shanghai Chuangxing Logistics, a professional third-party pharmaceutical logistics provider in China, needed flexible temperature-controlled capacity to support its pharmaceutical distribution operations and prepare ice packs for temperature-controlled shipments.

The challenge

Shanghai Chuangxing Logistics operates pharmaceutical cold-chain warehousing, trunk transportation and urban distribution, serving pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

Its business experiences periods of increased demand, including projects involving vaccines, special medicines and in vitro diagnostic reagents. At the same time, pharmaceutical distribution requires strict temperature control and traceable conditions.

The company needed a reliable way to precisely control the temperature of ice packs before they were placed into insulated containers used for pharmaceutical distribution.

Traditional second-hand refrigerated containers had presented concerns around temperature stability, while permanent cold storage infrastructure would require significant investment and would not provide the flexibility needed for fluctuating demand.

The solution

TITAN provided 8 ArcticStore units for precise temperature-controlled preparation of the customer’s ice packs.

The ArcticStore units use consistent refrigeration equipment and container construction, with the temperature adjusted according to the customer’s required target range.

Once the required temperature has been reached, the controlled environment allows engineers to accurately determine the holding time of the ice packs before they are placed into insulated pharmaceutical transport containers.

Importantly, TITAN does not come into direct contact with the pharmaceutical products. The solution supports the cold-chain process by preparing the cooling media used for onward pharmaceutical distribution.

The result

The solution gives Shanghai Chuangxing Logistics greater control and flexibility when preparing temperature-controlled shipments.

It provides:

• Precise and consistent temperature control for ice-pack preparation
• Flexible capacity to support changing pharmaceutical logistics requirements
• A more reliable alternative to second-hand refrigerated containers
• Support for temperature-controlled pharmaceutical distribution
• Infrastructure without the need to invest in permanent additional cold-storage facilities

The solution has also supported the development of a longer-term cooperation between TITAN and Shanghai Chuangxing Logistics.

Supporting pharmaceutical cold-chain reliability

In pharmaceutical logistics, maintaining the right conditions before and during transport is critical to protecting product quality.

This application demonstrates how temperature-controlled infrastructure can support different stages of the pharmaceutical cold chain, providing precise environmental control without requiring logistics providers to invest in permanent infrastructure for every change in demand.