When we receive an enquiry for a validated cold room we have to try and reassure a new unknown Client that the prices they receive will vary greatly between suppliers and we will probably be the most expensive (try winning a tender with that line).
Let me explain…
A validated pharmaceutical cold room is very different from a standard cold room, our cold rooms never go out of specification in all of the product occupied space and they work continuously despite high ambient conditions that’s because we spend more money on reliable equipment that is often oversized and we know how to place equipment and mix the air to provide the optimum conditions.
We also only use refrigeration equipment tried and tested by us for many years, only a product that proves it’s reliability is used to build a technickon room.
A recent tender we lost for 10 cold rooms was due to this problem of price. (We still won the contract to supply the 5 incubators so we didn’t grumble too much).
Apparently our competitor was one third of our price, we simply couldn’t buy half the materials for this price so we had to admit defeat despite pleading our case and explaining the reason.
Fast forward to the hand over of 5 working incubators a rather embarrassed Client asked if we could assist with the cold room validation issues. We are a friendly bunch and our Client felt comfortable to approach us.
Quite a few modifications later and some new equipment the cold rooms past the validation with no issues.
If our prices are compared like for like with a known competitor that provides close controlled pharmaceutical cold rooms then we know our prices are competitive.
BUT, with so many cold room suppliers offering high quality cold rooms the fight to win tenders will continue long into the future. A cold room for storage of food is simply not robust or resilient enough to store a pharmaceutical product.
We help many Clients out with cold room validation issues and often with some tweaks and some additional equipment we can resolve the issues.
Value for money is important but not as important as product protection for a pharmaceutical product.
We design, build and validate reliable pharmaceutical cold storage for many Clients across the UK and as far reaching as the Middle East and we always like to remind our Clients (once we have gained their trust) that our prices are reassuringly expensive.