Hydropac has launched a new water-based ice pack range - HydroFreeze - engineered to support pharmaceutical and life sciences logistics with greater thermal stability, faster conditioning, and enhanced environmental compliance.
Hydropac
As medical supply chains tighten and regulatory expectations evolve, the new HydroFreeze icepacks offer cold chain stakeholders a high-performance, low-impact solution that supports strict temperature standards while reducing energy and waste.
How does the new HydroFreeze Ice Pack outperform past generations?
Compared to HydroFreeze+ (gel-based ice pack):
- 18.75% faster to freeze. This quicker freezing time brings significant energy savings and the new Hydrofreeze icepacks allow quicker pack preparation, especially critical for peak periods or same-day dispatch.
- Increase in performance. This can be defined as a 5.2% slower thaw time which adds important additional passive protection, mitigating cold chain breaks caused by traffic, misroutes, or handover delays that can lead to product rejection or recalls.
- Maintains stable phase change at -21°C, offering extended cold chain protection and ensures consistency for medicines and biologics.
- The water-based solution performs as effectively as gel, whilst reducing waste and allowing easier disposal. Water based ice packs also require less CO₂ to produce than their gel equivalents, simplifying regulatory and environmental compliance.
Compared to the original HydroFreeze (water-based ice pack):
- 51% faster to freeze - freeing up freezer space for other stock and enabling same-day conditioning in response to last-minute orders.
- 110% longer thaw protection. This offers double the freezing duration of the previous generation of HydroFreeze - vital for high-value temperature-sensitive drugs.
- Freeze-down temperature reduced from -30°C to -25°C. This means suppliers can switch to standard commercial freezing units, reducing the need for ultra-low-temperature infrastructure, saving capital investment and cutting CO₂ emissions from lower energy use.
- 34% reduction in freeze down time, leading to significant energy and working capital savings as well as streamlining batch release and conditioning flow
“Pharma cold chains demand both precision and progress,” said Colin Rowland, managing director at Hydropac. “The HydroFreeze ice packs deliver both - keeping temperature-sensitive products safe while supporting broader sustainability and compliance goals.”
With stronger performance, improved efficiency, and better sustainability credentials, this next generation of HydroFreeze ice packs is designed to keep valuable and important pharma and life science products safe, stable, and consistently protected throughout the cold chain, helping preserve freshness, reduce waste, and build smarter operations, directly from the lab.