Big freeze: DHL extends life sciences cold chain

DHL Global Forwarding has expanded its air freight cold chain logistics to include shipments at frozen or cryogenic temperatures.
Designed for customers from the life sciences and healthcare industry, the service is maintained by LifeConEx, DHL’s temperature management specialist, in collaboration with Cryoport, a provider of complete global frozen shipping services.
David Bang, chief executive at LifeConEx, said that the product is specifically designed for shippers who require that cryogenic temperature be reliably maintained during storage and transportation: “It also relieves them from more precarious shipping methods such as dry ice or use of hazardous liquid nitrogen."
The integral part of the new service is a non-hazardous liquid nitrogen dry vapour which has an IATA A152 waiver and is classified as non-hazardous, providing 10 days of holding time at minus 150ºC in an environmentally friendly manner.
Compared to dry ice, which needs to be replenished every few days and is prone to temperature deviations, this technology offers “more reliability, which is particularly critical for fragile and temperature-sensitive biomaterials,” said DHL.
The solution will include a temperature monitoring tool and customers can track their shipments at any given time via an online platform.