Inside the Shipper | CryoVeritas

Ambient

Pinktail BX™ M67C: pink. Cryobox below −67 °C

Dry ice: 15 g remaining

Thermal tint−80 °C+25 °C

Shipping box vs. cryobox

0 °C

Temperature difference between the shipping box air and the cell therapies in the cryobox.

Temperature over time

Ambient 22 °C Shipping box −78.5 °C Cryobox −78.5 °C

What each monitor reports

Pinktail BX™In the cryobox, with the cells Pink
−20 °C labelIn the shipper No change
Data loggerIn the shipper, reading the air −78.5 °C

What’s happening

01 · Different rates

The shipping box reacts in minutes

Once the last dry ice sublimates, the small volume of air inside the shipper has little thermal mass, so its temperature climbs quickly as heat leaks through the walls.

02 · Thermal lag

The cryobox follows on its own schedule

Vials, frozen formulation and the box itself hold far more cold. The cryobox trails the shipping box by tens of degrees, so a reading from the shipper describes the shipper, not the cells.

03 · The answer

Measure where the cells are

A Pinktail BX™ indicator sits in a vial slot inside the cryobox. It accumulates heat exposure right where your therapies are, building faster the warmer the cryobox gets, and changes color once that exposure adds up, giving receiving teams a confident, at-a-glance answer.

Beyond the shipment

Pinktail BX™ travels with the cryobox

Labels and data loggers ride in the shipper and come out at receiving. Pinktail BX™ sits in the cryobox beside your cell therapies, so it keeps recording heat exposure through unpacking, freezer storage and every retrieval after that.

In transport

After delivery

PackedCryobox on dry ice

In transitCourier and dock time

ReceivedShipper opened, box removed

On the benchInspection and paperwork

Freezer storageWeeks, months or years

RetrievedPulled for use or reshipped

Pinktail BX™In the cryobox

Monitoring the cells at every stage

Data loggerIn the shipper

Shipper air

Removed at receiving and sent back for download

−20 °C labelIn the shipper

Shipper air above −20 °C

Discarded with the shipper

Pinktail BX™

Data logger

−20 °C label

PackedCryobox on dry ice

In transitCourier and dock time

ReceivedShipper opened, box removed

–

On the benchInspection and paperwork

–

Freezer storageWeeks, months or years

–

RetrievedPulled for use or reshipped

–

Data loggers and labels ride in the shipper and come out at receiving. Pinktail BX™ stays in the cryobox.

Why Pinktail BX™

Where an indicator in the cryobox makes the difference

Shipper monitors describe the shipper. These are the moments when knowing what the cells experienced matters most.

Every box gets its own answer

A shipper often carries several cryoboxes, and a box near the lid warms sooner than one buried in dry ice. One logger can’t speak for all of them. An indicator in each cryobox can.

Decisions based on the cells

When dry ice runs low, shipper monitors react first, while the cryobox can still be tens of degrees colder. Pinktail BX™ reports the heat the cryobox actually absorbed, so release decisions rest on the product itself.

Receiving and bench time

Unpacking, inspection and paperwork all happen after the shipper monitors come out. The indicator keeps accumulating any heat exposure the whole time.

Months in the freezer

Power outages, doors left ajar, defrost cycles and freezer transfers. Pinktail BX™ stays active for years and shows any heat exposure the moment the box is opened.

A glance, at every retrieval

Each time the box is pulled, its history comes with it. Anyone can check it in a second, with no software, downloads or batteries.

The temperatures that matter

Many cell therapies need to stay below −40 °C. A −20 °C label stays unchanged through an excursion to −30 °C. Pinktail BX™ M67C starts accumulating heat above −67 °C, so it responds across the range your product cares about.

Side by side

How the options compare

	Pinktail BX™	−20 °C label	Data logger
Typical placement	In the cryobox, in a vial slot	Inside the shipper	Inside the shipper
What it measures	The cryobox, where the cells are	Shipper air	Shipper air, unless the probe is in the cryobox
How it responds	Accumulated heat above −67 °C, faster the warmer it gets	A single trip point near −20 °C	Continuous time-stamped readings
Catches excursions between −40 °C and −20 °C	Yes	No	Yes, at the probe location
Keeps monitoring after delivery	Yes, through storage and every retrieval	No	No, removed at receiving
Reading the result	Instant, by eye	Instant, by eye	Download and software
Cost to use on every box	Low	Low	High, usually one per shipper
Time-stamped data record	No	No	Yes

Choosing your setup

On its own, or alongside a logger

Pinktail BX™ is the simplest way to know what each cryobox experienced. When your program also needs a time-stamped record of the journey, it pairs naturally with a data logger.

Pinktail BX™

An answer in every cryobox

Replace shipper labels with an indicator that sits with the cells, responds at the right temperatures and stays on duty after delivery.

Research, biobank and site-to-site transfers
Shipments with several cryoboxes per shipper
Long-term freezer storage and repeated retrievals
Programs that want box-level confidence at a low cost per box

Pinktail BX™ + data logger

The full record, and the final word

The logger documents the lane. Pinktail BX™ confirms each cryobox at receiving and keeps watch long after the logger has gone back.

Clinical and commercial cell therapy shipments
Lane qualification and quality documentation
Carrier accountability and claims
Tip: place the logger probe in the cryobox when possible, and add Pinktail BX™ to every box

A logger tells you what happened to the shipment. Pinktail BX™ tells you what happened to the cells.

Working in a research lab?See what happens when a box of antibodies is forgotten on the bench after leaving the −80 °C freezer.

Forgotten on the Bench →

Storing samples long term?See a year in a shared −80 °C freezer, where the monitor stays in range but each box lives a different life.

A Year in the Freezer →

Not storing at −80 °C?Pinktail BX™ also covers −20 °C and −40 °C storage, and we’re developing indicators for −130 °C cryogenic storage. Tell us what you’re protecting.

Talk to us →

How we modeled this shipment

The animation runs a transient heat transfer model, solved second by second, built around a standard dry ice shipper and a 5 × 5 in cryobox. It is an illustrative profile for one common configuration.

Shipper: 12 × 12 × 12 in payload space with 2 in expanded polystyrene walls (k ≈ 0.033 W/m·K) inside a corrugated outer carton. Walls are modeled as six conduction layers with their own thermal mass.
Dry ice: the final 15 g of pellets at 3:00 PM, holding the payload space at −78.5 °C while it sublimates (571 kJ/kg). Starting heat leak is about 39 W at 22 °C ambient, roughly 6 kg of dry ice per day.
Shipping box air: the payload space air, residual CO₂ gas and inner liner, lumped as one node coupled to the inner wall by natural convection and radiation.
Cryobox: cardboard box with dividers holding 20 × 2 mL cryovials of cell therapy (1.5 mL frozen formulation each). Heat reaches the contents through surface convection, radiation and the box wall, giving a thermal time constant of about 45 minutes.
Pinktail BX™ M67C: modeled as its own small thermal mass in a vial slot, tracking the temperature of the cryobox contents. Above −67 °C it accumulates heat exposure based on both time and temperature, responding faster the warmer it gets, and changes color once the accumulated heat reaches its threshold.
Cell therapy limit: −40 °C, the temperature receiving teams most often need to confirm was not exceeded.
Ambient: held constant at the selected value.

Every lane, shipper and payload behaves a little differently. Our team can build a time and temperature profile for your exact configuration. Request a profile →

View the data as a table

Time	Ambient	Shipping box	Cryobox	Dry ice	Indicator heat dose

The cryobox tells its own story