Commercial cold chain appliance manufacturer Rockwell Industries on Wednesday said it has entered into a partnership with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories to provide vaccine freezers for Sputnik V vaccine storage across the country.
The Covid-19 vaccine freezers that it will provide will be World Health Organisation PQS (Performance, Quality and Safety) certified. “Our technology ensures Sputnik V’s storage management at vaccine centres meets the stringent refrigeration standards,” Rockwell Managing Director Ashok Gupta said in a release.
The Russian vaccine, being made available in India through Dr. Reddy’s, requires to be stored at minus 18 degrees Celsius. The Hyderabad-based Rockwell will also provide end to end logistics and after sales service support for the vaccine freezers across the country.
Rockwell said it took a lead in developing vaccine freezers as per WHO PQS Standard and following three years of efforts its research and development team achieved the goal of stringent design protocol. The product was tested at WHO authorised test laboratory in Denmark. Two vaccine freezers of varying capacities have been certified.
The company is also working with Dr. Reddy’s to develop and provide wireless IOT based controllers and data loggers that can give access to real time data of temperature and performance of the vaccine freezers, Director Prateek Gupta said.
The release said vaccine freezers play a critical role in safety of vaccines and maintaining their potency. Rockwell has closed deals for over 750 Covid-19 vaccine freezers with various hospitals and institutions. AIG, Apollo, Omega and Care Hospitals were already using its vaccine freezers and many more were in discussions for the same. The company, which has two manufacturing facilities in Hyderabad with a capacity of over four lakh units, is in the process of exporting the vaccine freezers, including to Japan as part of an initial pilot deal,” Mr.Prateek Gupta said.
