Pharmacy Glossary
Cold Chain Management
The process of maintaining a temperature-controlled supply chain for medicines that require refrigeration.
Cold chain management ensures that temperature-sensitive medicines — such as vaccines, insulin, and biologics — are stored and transported within the required temperature range at all times. A break in the cold chain can render medicines ineffective or dangerous. In pharmacy inventory management, cold chain items require separate tracking, monitoring, and reporting. Musawo flags cold chain products and tracks them separately.