PDA Technical Glossary
PDA Technical Reports are highly valued membership benefits because they offer expert guidance and opinions on important scientific and regulatory topics and are used as essential references by industry and regulatory authorities around the world. These reports include terms which explain the material and enhance the reader’s understanding.
The database presented here includes the glossary terms from all current technical reports. The database is searchable by keyword, topic, or by technical report. Each definition provided includes a link to the source technical report within the PDA Technical Report Portal.
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Cold Chain Tolerance Groups
This concept expands the “normal” definition of cold chain to include all products that need to be stored below 250C and also introduces the ancillary terms “ambient temperatures” and “controlled ambient”. (TR46)
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Comparability
The quality or state of being suitable for comparison. FDA may determine that two products are comparable if the results of the comparability testing demonstrate that a manufacturing change does not affect identity, strength, quality, purity, or potency as they may relate to the safety or effectiveness of the product. (TR38)
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Mean Kinetic Temperature (MKT)
The single calculated temperature at which the total amount of degradation over a particular period is equal to the sum of the individual degradations that would occur at various temperatures. Thus, MKT may be considered as an isothermal storage temperature that simulates the nonisothermal effects of storage temperature variation. It is not a simple arithmetic mean. (TR46) (TR58)
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Peltier Device
Peltier devices are small, solid-state ceramic and doped-semiconductor sandwiches designed to function in small cooling and heating applications. The devices can be “stacked” for greater cooling/heating but do draw considerable power. The advantage of these devices is that there are no moving parts, no maintenance, no refrigerant gasses, no noise, and no vibration. Disadvantages may include: high cost, fragility, and scalability, in addition to the aforementioned high power draw. (TR46)
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Phase Change Material (PCM)
A physical material that stores and releases thermal energy when freezing or melting. A PCM releases energy when freezing [latent heat energy] and absorbs energy when melting. (TR46)
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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Is an automatic technique for identifying objects using radio frequency transmissions. An RFID system generally consists of a tag, reader, antenna, and software. An RFID tag is simply another type of data carrier. Essentially, tags compromise a semiconductor chip with memory, processing capability and a transmitter connected to an antenna (aerial). (TR46) RFID is a method commonly used in retail of single directional data transfer from an identification tag (e.g., a data logger) to a stationary gateway or scanner; it is not to be confused with real-time monitoring. (TR58)
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Shipping Lane
An established route of transportation between a specific point of origin to a specific destination. More defined routes will consistently use the same combination and types of transportation vehicles and transfer procedures, but this may not be observed through all shipping lanes throughout the last mile. (TR46) Lane described by origin, transportation node(s) and destination in combination with the used transport mode(s) (truck, aircraft, etc.). (TR58)
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The Last Mile
This is a multidimensional cross-industry term that defines a point in the supply chain where the product or service directly faces the customer, end user or patient. (TR46)