Empowering Couriers To Master The Cold Chain

A huge crowd of visitors entering at the east gate. Foto: Messe München

Tec4med was at the transport logistic, the world’s leading trade fair for logistics, mobility, IT, and supply chain management in Munich. This opportunity showed the challenges of Onboard couriers (OBC) who want to enter the cold chain logistics market. Especially the health sector, with pharmaceuticals, stem cells, and tissue samples, proved to be the new market trend for many leading OBCs to enter or expand, even though its high regulatory environment.

There is an ever-growing market for the transportation of stem cells, blood samples, and drugs. Especially with new verified cold chain drugs, the need to distribute life-saving medications around the world will become more and more critical over the next few years.

Made for real-life usage

Right now, the status quo for OBC is using passive cooling solutions. Passive systems come along with extensive and complicated preconditioning. They’re using ice packs, phase-change material, and refrigerators. Establishing compliant processes according to the Good Distribution Practice (GDP) needs trained staff, qualified operations, and significant upfront investments.

The NelumBox fits easily into the overhead bin of airplanes.

Still, passive cooling solutions come along with many practical problems, especially in the day-to-day business of an Onboard Courier. They can neither be carried one-handed nor do they usually fit in the overhead bin. Passive cooling boxes must be taken care of regarding capacity and reusability. This leads to great packaging waste because of the single-use approach. On top, they lack proper proof of the cold chain, depending on external data logger systems that the OBC also needs to take care of.

So how to start expanding within the pharmaceutical cold chain sector as a newcomer?

The solution, for newcomers to the medical supply chain as well as for established OBC companies, is right here. With NelumBox, the requirements for GDP compliance are all met. Anyway, no cold chain warehousing, process validation, and staff training are needed. With NelumBox, precondition becomes obsolete, since the system practically offers small GDP-warehouses ad-hoc logistics anywhere, anytime. Once the delivery starts, NelumBox as the first active cooling solution, convinces with an endless runtime thanks to the use of additional batteries and recharging functionalities.

Another important aspect is the safety of NelumBox. It can only be accessed by using an authorized RFID card. Otherwise, the door won’t open. This gives a significant advantage compared to any passive solution, which doesn’t have any security system at all. Passive systems lack a total access control, predisposing the cargo to unauthorized access.

Thermal stability and independence

On top, active systems offer a much higher thermal stability, being independent on the predicted outside temperature. The courier does not have to worry at all, whether the system is suspended to high or low temperatures. NelumBox has been in extensive testing in extreme temperature scenarios, and it even works great at overloaded overhead bins.

Customers of OBC companies have high standards for their products. NelumBox being the most advanced thermal transport solution, helps to track every vital part of the logistical journey. No matter if temperature, humidity, access, or geolocation, it’s all visible in the dashboard that belongs to each device. Using this tracking option allows the OBC company as well as its customer to live-track the essential data at all times.

Newcomers can easily join the cold chain

Especially for newcomers to the medical cold chain, the NelumBox is the go-to option. It’s a fast, easy, and uncomplicated entry to cold chain logistics opening new business opportunities to any OBC’s service portfolio. There is no need to build up a whole infrastructure to try cold chain logistics. NelumBox can be rented monthly, but also be used in a Pay-per-Use model. This is offering OBC businesses flexibility, shifting the entry barrier from large CAPEX investments to a much more lucrative OPEX investment. Besides, the costs and maintenance of the NelumBox are way lower than any passive cooling system. The OBC can present his business as the technology leader in smart and digital cooling solutions.

To get more information about our products, feel free to send an email to info(at)tec4med.com.