Another Greenville company ramps up for vaccine transport support

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Lifoam Industries LLC, a subsidiary of Greer-based LifeMade Products LLC and Jadex Inc., is expanding its production capacity to meet a demand for ultra-cold packaging used in the transport of COVID-19 vaccines.

The company’s minus 70-degree Celsius dry-ice-based shipping containers and minus 20-degree Celsius Phase Change Material-based containers support nationwide efforts to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to clinics, pharmacies, hospitals and other vaccination sites, according to a news release today.

“Pharmaceutical companies have worked tirelessly over the past 12 months to create life-saving vaccines, now it’s the job of Lifoam and others to share in the responsibility of delivering them safely,” Mark Gettig, president of LifeMade, said in the release. “Our COVID task force has been working diligently with vendors, partners and distributors to address the critical and complex packaging needs. We’ve increased our capacity to supply vaccine manufacturers and their distributors with the packaging they need to quickly and safely transport COVID-19 vaccines.”

Lifoam’s shipping containers can chill vaccines for up to 120 hours without a new bag of dry ice, according to the release.

“We have ready-made solutions that are proven and reliable for vaccine distribution, and we can work with pharmaceutical companies to custom engineer a solution for special payload sizes and other requirements utilizing our proven technologies and in-house ISTA-certified test facilities, while also maintaining a dedication to sustainability,” Gettig said in the release.

Softbox, another company with a North American base in Greenville, provides cold-chain packaging support to Pfizer for the transport of its COVID-19 vaccine and is considering a 55,000-square-foot expansion at its 350 Frontage Road facility in the near future.