Even if certain medications do not need to be refrigerated, that doesn’t mean they don’t experience breakdown. Pharmaceutical products are perishable products, and they have an expiration date letting us know just when the medication will begin to lose potency due to a chemical breakdown over time. For most products, the United States Pharmacopeia requires that drugs retain at least 90% of their original potency at their expiration date. What this means is that, for some medications, you may be able to use them past their expiration date, but they will be less effective. For others, a change in consistency or spoilage may render them unusable altogether.
So, what does this mean for the shipping process? The stability of medications is not solely impacted by time, but also by environmental factors. Both heat and humidity have been shown to speed up the degradation process exponentially, which means that long-term exposure to these environmental conditions could cause the expiration dates to become inaccurate, or do irreversible damage to the stability of the medication rendering it unusable. With products as important as pharmaceuticals, an unusable or compromised product has the potential to do real damage to consumers.
The most important thing pharmaceutical companies can do for their products and the people using them is to protect medications from the environmental factors, ensuring these drugs arrive to patients in their original quality. One of the most important ways to approach this is to consider the shipping process, and how long the products will be in a truck or airplane traveling from place to place without the proper environment control.
The solution to the environmental factor during shipping problem is insulation and keeping medications in their original temperature and state until they reach their destination. Container blankets, container liners, and thermal pallet covers help to keep cargo in a temperature controlled state for the entire duration of the trip, while also keeping light out and products amply protected. By taking this small step, pharmaceutical companies can rest assured that their products are reaching consumers in the fashion and quality they were intended.
