Millions of doses of anti-Covid vaccines are currently being transported all over the world. A challenge for carriers who must respect the cold chain. In Montpellier, a start-up has developed a technology that responds to this problem and its order book is exploding.
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Minus 70 ° C: this is the temperature above which the anti-Covid vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna must especially not rise, under penalty of loss of immunity and side effects.
Therefore, their transport becomes a real challenge for carriers: how to ensure compliance with the cold chain? The case invented by a start-up from Montpellier in 2019 allows it. Result: for several weeks, the company Koovea notes a sharp increase in orders.
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Cold and humidity complicated the design of the case
This device measures only a few centimeters. Connected and intelligent, it slips into the vaccine transport bag and allows the traceability of the temperature of sensitive products down to minus 200 degrees, thanks to an innovative process which gave a hard time to Romain Penot, electronic engineer at Koovea:
The vaccine transport and storage conditions are extreme: intense cold, humidity … Electronics, plastics, batteries: all the equipment suffers. However, we achieve an autonomy of 3 to 5 years despite the very low temperatures, but that was one of the biggest difficulties of the design.
Romain Penot, electronic engineer at Koovea
Smartphone temperature tracking application
Since the covid-19 vaccine must be stored at a temperature of minus 70 degrees, a tolerance of plus or minus 10 degrees is accepted. Beyond that, an alert is automatically sent to the carrier’s phone on which the temperatures of each refrigerated container are displayed, in order to allow it to act to maintain the viability of the product, as explained by Yohann Caboni, director and co. -founder of Koovea:
We have developed a whole system with sensors, keywords, a computer interface and an application that allows real-time monitoring of the temperature, specifications and location of all health products such as Covid vaccines. .
Yohann Caboni, director and co-founder of Koovea
Activity up by 10 to 20%
Every week, 500,000 doses of vaccines are sent to France. The pace should pick up from February.
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In this context, the Montpellier start-up, which has customers all over the world, has seen its activity increase by 10-20% in recent weeks and this growth is expected to continue.
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