FEBRUARY 8, 2021
Sonoco ThermoSafe Celebrates First Pegasus ULD® Uplift on AirBridgeCargo Airlines, Releases Case Study
Sonoco ThermoSafe and AirBridgeCargo Airlines, all-cargo carrier within Volga-Dnepr Group, has successfully conducted a test shipment with ThermoSafe’s new Pegasus ULD®, the world’s first passive bulk temperature controlled container for pharmaceutical use that is an approved unit load device.
The complexity and duration of the journey made this initial shipment an ideal case study. The entire shipping process involved multiple segments of ground and air transportation, starting in London and including stops in Amsterdam, Moscow and Frankfurt, extending beyond 130 hours. The Pegasus ULD contains a fully integrated, FAA-approved telemetry system, providing real-time, cloud-based data on both payload and ambient temperature and key environmental factors, precisely synchronized with GPS location, which confirmed that the internal temperature held between 2°C and 8°C throughout the entire journey.
This shipment demonstrated Pegasus’ ability to address two of the key challenges for bulk passive pharmaceutical packaging technologies: providing long duration (>5 day) thermal performance, and a design that eases operational handling at every step, from trucking to ground handling to flying.
As a passive ULD, the Pegasus container can be directly loaded into an aircraft cargo hold using standard LD3 loading procedures. This simplifies the cargo loading process, removing competing passive containers’ need to apply a cookie-sheet, wrapping and netting. Because of the ease of use, AirBridgeCargo was able to easily forward the container from Amsterdam into Moscow, where the winter season ambient conditions did not cause freezing or alteration of the payload temperature of the Pegasus ULD®.
“As
Covid-19 accelerates global pharmaceutical companies’ evolution of their
processes to ship large amount of medicines from their production facilities
into distribution centers, it has driven many to reconsider packaging as a
strategic decision,” said Ron Haub, Segment Director at Sonoco ThermoSafe. “The
renewed focus on cold chain transportation has revealed the importance of data
collection to verify cold chain integrity. Sonoco ThermoSafe has specialized in
harnessing the visibility data generates for its customers. That’s why the
Pegasus ULD® pallet shipper is equipped with an integrated telemetry system
that provides critical real-time data on multiple parameters.”
These data sets provided AirBridgeCargo’s team with a real-time status of the
pallet shipper, providing valuable information for the safe and secure
transport of medicinal products. “We are proud to be given this opportunity to
demonstrate the quality of the pharma solutions we can provide together with
our global partner- Sonoco ThermoSafe. The Pegasus ULD®’s telemetry capability
and design, exceeds market’s expectations and we are sure that it will be
highly appreciated by the Life Science and Healthcare community, especially for
large volumes of pharmaceutical shipments,” highlighted Yulia Celetaria, Healthcare
Director for Volga-Dnepr Group.
For more information on the Pegasus ULD and this case study, visit www.thermosafe.com/pegasus-uld to learn more.