Printed-electronics technology offers a low-cost temperature sensing approach

Pharma cold chain shipments that require temperature monitoring generally employ chemical indicators, which provide a low-cost, yes/no approach to temperature assurance, or electronic devices that can measure, record and in some instances transmit temperature data. Costs can range from low (but more than some chemical indicators) to high enough to justify retrieving and reusing the device as many times as possible to amortize the expense.

Into this mix comes Temptime Corp. (Morris Plains, NJ) which has a substantial track record of chemcial indicators, and Thin Film Electronics (Oslo, Norway), which has been developing printed-electronics technology with an emphasis on economy and performance.The two companies have announced that they jointly bring a "smart label" to market in life sciences applications that will record temperature excursions during shipments, and communicate these data as required.

Electronic sensing and communication are by no means new, but the Thin Film technology holds the promise of establishing substantially lower cost levels for the application. company literature alludes to matching the 30cts/item cost of some chemical indicators. Thin Film is also working on medical oxygen sensors, smart labels for food distribution and personal identification applications.

Temptime says that it mas made a development-related investment in Thin Film, including pre-corders for demonstration samples. A commercial introduction date has not been set.