7 Jun 2011

Biomedical Products Marketer Saves Big With High-Tech Aerogel Cartons


Increases in skinned equipment and packaging expenditure are pressuring relationships linking manufactured goods manufacturers and contract packagers. The need to control expenditure is particularly valuable in shipping “cold chain” products globally, and pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies are seeking budget-saving alternatives in packaging temperature-sensitive products effectively and shipping them worldwide.
Places to look to stretch this pressure include the packaging equipment and how they are used. One area with the intention of is ripe pro assess in sinking unwarranted expenditure is the capabilities of containers used in shipping temperature-sensitive products. New equipment are appearance on the promote with the intention of, as used with the aptly products, can help health check manufactured goods manufacturers-and potentially marketers of packaged foods-by keeping the manufactured goods by the vital warmth and furthermore trimming dissipate all through distribution.
Among these equipment are thermal insulators, and lone of the extra ones on the promote is Aeroblack™, an enhanced form of aerogel, from American Aerogel Corp. Inside the biomedical industry, Advanced BioHealing Inc., a La Jolla, CA, biotechnology products company, uses Aeroblack panels in its master suitcases to proffer the calculate with the intention of the desired subzero warmth can be maintained inside cartons containing an well ahead wound-care manufactured goods. Besides extended “shelf life,” Advanced BioHealing has cut-rate the shipping box size 30% by switching from polyurethane containers and has graze shipping expenditure by 40%.
Inside its simplest form, aerogel is a very low-density, low-porosity, open-cell material with the intention of is 95% or more air. It consists of a gel of alcohol- and silicon dioxide-based molecules with the intention of are linked collectively. When the mixture is exposed to excitement and pressure, the alcohol unhurriedly vaporizes and escapes, leaving the solid material intact as a massive go up area with the capability to keep up temperature-sensitive products under optimum shipping conditions.
Aerogel, furthermore renowned as “frozen smoke,” has been around since the 1930s in industries such as coatings and filling. But Dennis Young, American Aerogel chief executive, believes the calculate is aptly to proffer aerogel more widely into packaging.
“The conundrum has been with the intention of it's very trying to get on to a monolithic, solid-piece aerogel, such as in cube form,” Young explains. “Aerogels look after to crack, lessen, and powder. Their performance has been better than approximately competitive products, but not sufficient to offset cost.”
Anticipating demand from manufactured goods manufacturers, American Aerogel has patented equipment under the Aeroblack brand with the intention of Young claims has overcome production and cost barriers, while preserving the material's corporal properties. “It has the strength to be the basic material pro a vacuum-insulated panel and to produce distinguished performance by a fee that's appropriate pro the packaging filling promote,” Young says.
Product manufacturers and contract packagers in the biomedical, pharmaceutical, and food industries could discover with the intention of this enhanced form of aerogel meets their needs. That was the justification with Advanced BioHealing. By using shipping cartons containing Aeroblack, the company extends the amount of calculate it can keep its Dermagraft skin-substitute manufactured goods frozen by the vital warmth.
This capability is vital since Advanced BioHealing ships Dermagraft across the United States and to Europe and South Africa. Dermagraft is a cryopreserved creature fibroblast-derived dermal use instead and is used in treating diabetic bottom ulcers. The manufactured goods is collected of fibroblasts, extracellular matrix, and a bioabsorbable and dissolvable suture-like material. This arrangement of equipment requires with the intention of the manufactured goods be frozen by -75˚ C (-103˚ F) from the calculate it is packaged until it is used in a doctor's personnel.
Advanced BioHealing had been shipping lone manufactured goods for every package in better polyurethane containers packed in lots of dry ice. “We single may possibly validate maintaining the consignment by -75˚ C pro 72 hours,” says Gerald Vovis, Advanced BioHealing's sub- president and all-purpose administrator. “Domestic shipping can be made overnight but international shipping requires lone to two days. So the doctor's personnel had to be inflicted with its own freezer to keep up with the intention of warmth some time ago the dry ice expired, and not each doctor's personnel does.”
Shipping containers incorporating Aeroblack offer several advantages ended the ex- containers, Vovis says.
• Testing has validated with the intention of the containers keep up the -75˚ C background pro 105 hours.
• Less dry ice is vital than with a polyurethane shipper. The package is lighter, therefore sinking shipping expenditure.
• Even though the extra shipper cartons are less important, the need pro a reduced amount of dry ice enables the box to call five Dermagraft units, as different to lone element in the ex- box, furthermore contributing to savings on goods.
Each Dermagraft cut is 2” to 3” long and designed pro a single aid. Inside training pro shipping, all frozen cut is poly-bagged with a stabilizer. The poly bag is sealed and at that time placed in a tri-laminate foil small bag. The small bag, in curve, is packed in a labeled chipboard box measuring in this area 3”x5”x1/3”-similar in size to an audio-cassette tape box, Vovis says. The chipboard cartons are at that time packed with a less important quantity of dry ice and placed surrounded by the vacuum-insulated panels of the shipping container.
For contract packagers working with temperature-sensitive products, the need to preserve manufactured goods quality is vital. For model, American Aerogel's Young cites World Health Organization investigate screening with the intention of 50% of all vaccines-with a regard of $3.3 billion-spoil all through transit. “The expose of loss since of load spoilage is noteworthy,” he says.
If contract packagers can mess about a role in sinking spoilage and furthermore reduce shipping expenditure, they boost their regard to their customers, Young explains. Inside a business-to-consumer scenario, the shipping focus centers primarily on the size and consequence of the box. “Anything you can sort out to reduce persons is a cost bonus,” Young clarification.
But in a business-to-business transaction, by working with equipment with the intention of increase a package's thermal filling, companies can boost second-day and third-day shipping as an option pro lowering shipping expenditure.
The hypothetical justification study in the box on this leaf compares the cost differences associated with shipping temperature-sensitive health check products globally in plastic foam and aerogel.

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