F.A.Q.Frequently Asked Questions

We ship all COOL*SAFE items with DPD or DHL. The delivery time corresponds to the DPD or DHL shipping time + 1 – 2 day processing time.

We ship all over the world. DHL shipping rates vary from country to country.

We ship to private individuals directly after receiving payment.

Pharmacies and companies in Germany receive the delivery on account.

There is no minimum order value and no minimum order quantity.

You cannot conclusively say that. Each representative of the insurance company will decide on a case by case basis. Therefore, it is best to speak personally with the person in charge.

A reimbursement is made on a goodwill basis, since a cool bag is not a “medical device” or “assistive device” or “therapeutic product” within the meaning of the law. However, most health insurances refund at least part of the cost because you urgently need to keep your medicine in the cold chain. The molecular structure of your drug will not be damaged, only if it is maintained in the cold chain. Only if the cold chain is maintained is there no loss of effectiveness. You will inevitably need a medicine cooling bag for your medicine, in order to maintain the effect of the drug in general. You have no choice. And the health insurance companies should be aware of this.

The COOL*SAFE bag is inevitably a prerequisite for

1. Your medicine to safely arrive in your refrigerator or
2. Offering you a chance of being mobile..

With 1; first and foremost, it is important for you to be able to safely transport your medicine from the pharmacy back to your home. That is the most important thing. However, pharmacies cannot offer a safe medicine cool bag other than COOL*SAFE, which has been tested by the TÜV. There is only COOL*SAFE.

Styrofoam containers are sometimes lent, but these are very dangerous, since the frozen ice pack contained in them could freeze the medicine, even if the distance from the pharmacy to home is only 5 minutes. Or if the pharmacy offers only a thin insulated bag, then the drug will become too warm very quickly.

As a patient, you cannot take this risk.

With 2; although safe medicine cooling from the pharmacy to home is first of all the most obvious thing, you also need to be mobile despite your illness. For example, you need to be able to travel by train or car to a remote hospital rehabilitation centre. For this too, you will need a safe cold chain. Here, it is not an issue of wanting to indulge yourself in a so-called luxury “vacation”, and would like to get reimbursed for a dispensable luxury item. But also, there is the probability that you have to spend the night somewhere. You cannot expect that from now on you will only have to stay at home.

If the health insurance company should argue that it is the responsibility of the pharmacy to provide you with a safe cooling bag to transport your medicines home, then know that this is not true. A good pharmacy can voluntarily offer you this service. You can also ask the health insurance company which medicine cooling bag they would recommend to the pharmacy for lending, which will NOT harm the drug. The health insurance company will probably not be able to answer that. Another safe cool bag other  than COOL*SAFE does not exist. We don’t know of any other. If so, let us know about it.

In fact, there are only COOL*SAFE cool bags that can provide proper cooling of your medicine in the cold chain. Your insurance representative can call us or better still, write to us, and we can provide him/her with further information.

All models (except our Protect L) have the same interior. Only the outer design is different. 80% of all cold-chain medicine boxes fit in the COOL*SAFE cool bags.

Those medicine boxes, which are larger than 16 x 4 x 14.5 cm in size, do not fit into the existing medicine compartment. In this case, you will need an additional inlay, the “inlay for large medicine packages”, PZN 1453494 EAN 4260.136.170.381 PHZNR: 4097752, with a drug intake in the size: 19 x 6 x 17 cm.

Or get our Protect M, which has the larger protection pouch already incorporated.

Many larger medicine boxes fit into the COOL*SAFE Protect L.

If you are unsure then you can figure it out here with our calculation tool: packaginator.

We would like to meet your request for a smaller cool bag. Unfortunately, that is not possible. And we will gladly explain why:

We as well originally wanted to design the cool bags smaller, however, this couldn’t be done practically.

Once we reduce the size, the medicine automatically comes closer to the cool packs, thus presenting the risk that the medicine may become too cold and freeze. Thereby eliminating the purpose of the cool bags: it does help to protect the drug from overheating, only to end up freezing it. Thus, we would not have differed from previously available cool bags.

There was only the possibility of reducing the cooling bag on its width. We reduced the width as much as possible, so that the drugs do not get frozen. Here, however, the cooling time had fallen so drastically that the cooling bag no longer made sense because it was no longer practical. After all, it’s our desire to be able to keep the drug safely cooled for hours, even at ambient temperatures (in the car, bus or train) of about 40 degrees Celsius. We are very often exposed to temperatures like these. Even if you leave your handbag in the sun, its inside could easily heat up to 50 degrees … As soon as we reduced the cool bag size, we only obtained a cooling time of less than 1 hour at 20 degrees Celsius.

That’s why our COOL*SAFE cool bag has these dimensions. It’s as small as possible to prevent the risk of freezing, while being just big enough to keep your medicine cool for hours, giving you the necessary mobility. Therefore, you do not have to rush home immediately after receiving the medicine from the pharmacy; but you can still make a purchase (go shopping) or even go on vacation with your medicine.

We hope that with this explanation, we have been able to give you some insight into our “development phase”. And we hope that you can come to love our bags, even if initially the bag seems too big. In any case, your medicine is safely stored in the COOL*SAFE bags, and that’s the most important thing.

Yes. This can easily be achieved. You can easily extend the cooling time to over 20 hours or longer. We will gladly send you instructions on how to do this. Contact us here.

Or read the instructions here.

Yes!

You can carry the COOL*SAFE cool bags, as well as the COOL*SAFE cool packs and the cooling carry-on on air travel as hand luggage. To the best of our knowledge, all airlines allow COOL*SAFE products to be taken aboard. Only CONDOR always requires a special permit in advance, which it always grants. However, CONDOR usually requires a processing time of up to 8 weeks. We will help you to contact the CONDOR. Just write us an email.

The volume of the COOL*SAFE cool packs is about 100 ml. The weight is higher, but that is not relevant to the security controls.

To make it easier for you to have a faster check-in at the airport, it is best to ask your doctor to complete this form:

Confirmation form for security checks

This allows you to get through all security controls worldwide.

Under this link you will also find a confirmation about the cool packs.

No!

Only the number of cool packs specified in the instructions for use can make sure we get reliable cooling in the cold chain. A different number of cool packs could cause your medicine to either gets too cold or too warm. In addition, the cooling time will no longer be maintained.

Only the COOL*SAFE cold packs, in conjunction with the COOL*SAFE cool bag will ensure that your medicine stays in the cold chain. Other cool packs, instead of the original COOL*SAFE cool packs will not work.

COOL*SAFE cool packs are reusable. You can freeze them in any freezer and in any 3-star freezer compartment of a fridge.

On some trips, you may also be faced with the situation that you want to take your medicine to several places.

In this case, you will always need cold packs frozen at -18 °C. This can be quite a challenge, especially if you do not speak the language of the country, and you do not know how reliable the temperature information is or whether there will be power cuts.

Please also read the travel reports on this subject: Here.

These are tips from the experience of many COOL*SAFE users:

If there is no freezer in your hotel or accommodation, then visit the nearest local butcher, restaurant, or baker to ask if they would freeze your cold packs for at least 12 hours laid flat. If possible, check where and how the cool packs are placed so that they don’t bend if the host allows you to take them into their personal premises.

Since you don’t always have internet everywhere, it makes sense that you write down this request, the question and, if necessary, explanations of your situation already at home and have it translated. ALWAYS have it translated into English as well. Print it out and take the paper with you on your trip. This is especially important if it is in a different script, such as Thai or Hindi.

An excellent translation program for English, French and Spanish is deepl.com. For other languages, you should try more than just google translator. For those who are good with internet, we recommend fiverr.com, as you can get your letter translated into almost any language in the world very very cheaply (from 5 USD).

Then do NOT go with your medicine to the place where you had the cool packs frozen, but pick up the cool packs with your COOL*SAFE cool bag and only then put your medicine into the cool bag. Always leave the empty cool bag in as cold a place as possible, out of direct sunlight.

Please also read the next tip: “Short-haul travel and long-haul travel with travel times of up to 35 hours”.

Yes, it is possible. For short-distance and long-distance journeys, with travel times of up to 35 hours, COOL*SAFE is the ideal bag, because your drug will be safely protected and you can easily extend the cooling time.

We can give you tips that we have gained from the experiences of other clients who have been in similar situations and who have written to us of their experiences. Some customers go on vacation to hotels without refrigerators or camping in the wild.

Regarding a journey of 5 straight days, other customers had these ideas:

For example:

• When booking the room, they always asked if the room fridge had a freezer compartment
• They laid out their itinerary so that there was always a baker or restaurant nearby, if the guesthouse or hotel owner could not freeze the cool packs at the hotel in the evening, so that they could be used in the morning.
• If there was no hotel fridge or during camping, then they left the cool packs with someone nearby (restaurant, pharmacy, especially bakers, because the bakers always opened very early, etc.) and exchanged the cool pack in the morning and in the evening, and kept the medicine throughout in the COOL*SAFE cool bag. As a result, you didn’t need a refrigerator.They purchased additional COOL*SAFE cool packs and sent them to the respective locations where they would spend the night, even before travelling, if due to time constraints, a freezing of at least 12 hours cannot be guaranteed. There they left the cool packs in the hotel restaurant or with the local butcher or baker to be frozen. While this may be a bit of a hassle, it’s worth it because you can be sure that your medicine is always properly refrigerated. And overnight, they stored their medicine in the hotel fridge.
• Some tried electric cool bags, but were disappointed because the specified cooling time (and battery life) could not be realised and the bags started beeping loudly, after a fairly short period of time. This was a nuisance especially for such customers, when the beeping began on the plane. In recent years, loud beeping in airplanes is no longer funny… Apparently, such battery-powered, electric cool bags only last about 7 hours. You could still cope with the beeps. However, the much more significant problem here would be the fact that the cold chain was no longer maintained. And when you cannot immediately put the drug in a refrigerator, there is a risk that the drug becomes ineffective.

You are transporting a valuable drug. Not just valuable from the monetary point of view, but much more in the sense that it protects your health and prevents your disease from progressing further. And if you protect your medicine by keeping it in the cold chain, then it can protect your health.

No.
Although it would be practical to also use the COOL*SAFE reusable cool packs as pocket warmers or heat pads, they cannot be used as such due to their chemical composition.

I can reassure you.

Contact with the gel is not harmful to health, neither by inhalation nor by physical contact. Nevertheless, it should not come into contact with mucous membranes and it must not be eaten.

Cleaning options:

Best of all, you wipe away the leaked gel with a paper towel and throw it away.

Just use water for your hands. And after you have largely rinsed off the gel, rinse again with soap.

For surfaces, also use water first, and then a normal cleaning product.

You can dispose of the broken cool pack in the normal household waste.

When the cool pack is broken, it may leak over time. Unfortunately, this is due to the nature of this type of cool pack.

That is why the instructions for use also indicate that they should not be broken. Please lay the cool packs flat after use, either back in the freezer or in another cabinet. Do not leave it in the cooling bag. Your cooling bag will only be fully functional, with the complete set of COOL*SAFE cool packs, ensuring cooling between +2 and +8 degrees. With other ice packs there is a risk that the drugs will be frozen.

We tried hard shell cool packs during the development of the cool bag, but unfortunately, we noticed that all hard shell cool packs freeze the medicine.

We have developed a special gel that releases the cold into the environment within a certain period of time, so that the medicines do not get frozen, if handled according to the instructions. And this only worked with the flexible cool pack. So we had to compromise on producing these flexible cool packs, even if it’s not ideal. But it is the only way to achieve the long cooling duration, while protecting the medicine against freezing. Only COOL*SAFE cool packs can be used to ensure proper and safe cooling.

First of all, the good news: With the COOL*SAFE cool bags, we have had several measurements carried out by the TÜV. We have test reports for these TÜV measurements. In addition to checking the cooling time at different outdoor temperatures, special care was taken to ensure that the temperature does not slip below + 2 ° C.

This is the most important thing, since a decrease in temperature below + 2 ° C would cause an irreversible (permanent) change in the drug’s molecular structure; which may result in the loss of the drug’s effectiveness. This also applies in case the drug gets too warm.

Unfortunately, because it depends on the compliance with the cold chain INSIDE of the drug, it is very difficult to obtain a truly meaningful reading, with most domestic thermometers.

If you put a household thermometer or a data logger in the cool bag compartment NEXT to your medicine box, then you are most likely to get readings in the freezing area. This would unnecessarily worry you, as the temperature in the medicine box in the pen or blister is higher and thanks to the TÜV measurements, we have ruled out that the temperature may have dropped too low.

If you’re primarily concerned with checking the cooling duration to estimate when to replace the replacement cool packs, then such a thermometer or data logger will also not help because their measurement results are just too inaccurate.

However, to estimate when to change the replacement of the cool packs, your own personal assessment of how long you have been in environments with different outside temperatures will help you to compare these periods to the durations indicated in the instruction manual. That works out quite well. It always makes sense to provide a time buffer; especially, if you are not sure about the cooling duration during longer trips.

You can even go on long-distance trips with COOL*SAFE. You are therefore not restricted in your mobility and can enjoy your holiday without worries. Not to mention that you can also safely pick up your drug from the pharmacy.

We received this great question from a patient who sometimes has to transport pens and sometimes cartridges for the pens:

I store the cartridge-filled pen in its “naked” state (I no longer have an outer packaging for it) – in the fridge at home in a Tupperware.

In refrigerators when travelling, I would put it in a THIN “pen pouch”) and the new injection cartridge in its original condition including cardboard packaging. THESE TWO THINGS would then be in my cool-safe at most.

My own “indoor practice Cool-Safe temp. test” (with only a thermometer inside the bag and nothing else, while opening the bag several times to check the temp) showed a max. 13 hr. cooling at 23.5 degrees room temp. cooling.

What is the significance of transporting the “cartridge in the pen” without the outer packaging (medicine box)?

As written: THIS is the practice as it will arise in any journey.

This is our answer:

If you no longer have a box for the pen or for cartridges, then it is important to put it in a – pre-cooled – pen pack or box. This creates extra insulation that helps to prevent the medicine in the pen from freezing.

In such a case, pre-chill the pen case or box in the refrigerator. Only put the pen or cartridges/ampules into the chilled case or box after a few hours, then put the pen in the box into your cool bag.

We have a TÜV measurement at 30 °C ambient temperature and approx. 11 hours cooling time, always measured IN the medication and without opening the bag any further. Thus, a cooling duration of approx. 13 hours at 23.5 degrees outside temperature is quite possible if the cooler bag is opened several times.