NEW INNOVATIONS IN VACCINE STORAGE

As we wait for a COVID-19 vaccine, Jurata Thin Film has been working on new technology to assist packaging, shipping and storage of a vaccine. The company has just released the MSI-TX Thin Film, which enables up to 500 does of a vaccine to be placed on a single wafer-thin sheet of film to be delivered at room temperature in less than 1 per cent of packaging volumes than presently required. The technology removes the need for specialised storage containers and cold-storage requirements for biologics, as well as mass quantities of glass vials. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines need to be kept cold. The Moderna vaccine is stored frozen at -20°C, but it keeps for a month at refrigerator temperatures. The vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech must be kept at an ultra-cold -70°C.

First published in 2015 by Dr Maria Croyle, the film, transfer process, and reconstitution process have been fully tested and are ready for commercial use. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), it is estimated that delivery of one dose of COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s 7.8 billion people would require 8,000 jumbo jet cargo planes. With most vaccines under development as a two-dose regimen, this would bring that total to 16,000 jets. According to Croyle, MSI-TX Thin Film can deliver the same amount of vaccine with just four jets. “This is truly groundbreaking technology that can fill a critical need to meet the packaging and distribution challenges for COVID-19 vaccines,” says Croyle. “Eight thousand uncut sheets of the film can hold more than four million vaccine doses, which can be distributed in envelopes through standard shipping methods to anywhere in the world and stored in a two-drawer filing cabinet.”