The following is a release from BioLife Solutions:

SAVSU Technologies and Bothell-based BioLife Solutions, Inc. announced June 18 that the evo smart shipping container, designed and manufactured by SAVSU and marketed by BioLife, was the silver award recipient at the recent Medical Design Excellence Awards competition for the category Medical Product Packaging, Graphic Instructions, and Labeling Systems.

Designed to provide enhanced thermal and mechanical stress protection for time and temperature sensitive biologic payloads such as cells, tissues, and organs, the evo smart shipping container product line includes models that operate at cryogenic, refrigerated, and ambient temperatures.

Further designed to overcome the limitations of non-integrated payload monitoring devices, evo contains embedded cellular and multi-parameter monitoring technologies that sense payload conditions and transmit critical payload and shipment data to the biologistex cloud hosted cold chain management app. This seamless, integrated app enables users to packout, ship, monitor, and track biologic payloads during transit to the destination and the bedside. Key payload and shipment configurable alerts include location, payload and ambient temperature, delivery, unpacking, and remaining stability time.

Bruce McCormick, president of SAVSU Technologies, commented on the recognition of the innovative design of the evo smart shipping container by stating, “We are very honored to receive this design award. Our new evo product line is the hardware component of the product offering from our biologistex joint venture with BioLife. It represents our latest thinking about shipping critical, small volume cellular therapies and tissue samples, which are more difficult than large volume shipments. In the case of autologous therapies, we all know that there is a patient depending on a customized cellular therapy to arrive safely and reliably, and the evo helps create a system that advances the state of the art significantly.”

The Global Healthcare Cold Chain Logistics Market Report & Forecast published by the IMARC Group estimates that the demand for cold chain packaging and instrumentation services will grow from $3.2 billion in 2013 to $5.1 billion in 2018. BioLife management believes its addressable market for small payload shippers and related monitoring devices is several hundred million dollars.

Mike Rice, BioLife Solutions President & CEO, commented on the MDEA for evo by stating, “The SAVSU design team did a phenomenal job blending and balancing the form, function, and aesthetics of the evo smart shipping container. Initial feedback has been very complimentary and we are working hard to deploy the first evo shippers in the next several weeks. The collaborative spirit of our joint venture has also yielded several additional design innovations for evo and our cloud hosted biologistex cold chain management app and we have filed several new patent applications to seek protection of our intellectual property.”