What’s Driving Faster Cold Chain Packaging Innovation

The cold chain packaging sector is innovating faster than it has in years, according to Vijay Paliwal, vice president of advanced solutions and customer experience at Cold Chain Technologies. "The growth has been phenomenal," he says. "The pace of innovation has increased."

Speaking with Pharmaceutical Commerce at LogiPharma USA 2026, where he joined the panel "Reinventing Cold Chain Packaging & Technology: Smarter Systems for a More Predictable and Sustainable Future," Paliwal points to the move away from single-use expanded polystyrene shippers toward reusable solutions built on vacuum insulated panels. AI is also advancing. With clean data, he says, companies can uncover deeper insights and act on them more effectively than they could five years ago.

Materials are evolving too. Paliwal notes continuous innovation in phase change material technology and insulation types, including cellulose-based insulation, and thermal durations are increasing. "Overall, we are moving in the right direction," he says.

Looking ahead to 2027, Paliwal sees AI and data as the trend to watch. Every session he attended at the conference touched on both, yet "I don't think a lot of companies have put it to use," he says. The pressing questions are what companies will do with the data they collect, whether it is clean and whether they can build agents or engines that act on it.

Paliwal expects the industry to move from basic visibility to predicting and flagging risk. Intervention and interception are still driven manually today, but he believes AI could eventually automate that end-to-end process. He is unsure it will happen in 2027 but expects significant progress in the coming year.

Watch Paliwal’s previous interview installments:

1. How Lanes and Duration Shape Cold Chain Packaging Selection
2. Predicting Excursions and Right-Sizing Shippers: Two Paths to a Leaner Cold Chain