Why Organizations Choose ATEK Over Cryopak
It is not every day you compare two Montreal-based companies competing in the same cold chain space. Cryopak Industries has spent nearly three decades building thermal packaging expertise from their Quebec headquarters — insulated shippers, gel packs, phase change materials, and more recently the iMINI and iLOG data loggers for transport temperature tracking. ATEK, also Montreal-based, took a fundamentally different path: building a continuous facility monitoring platform for regulated environments. The result is two neighbors solving two different halves of the cold chain problem.
Understanding Cryopak
Cryopak Industries was founded around 1994 in Montreal, Quebec, and remains headquartered in the city. The company built its reputation as a thermal packaging specialist, designing insulated shipping solutions that protect pharmaceutical and life sciences products during transport. Over the years, Cryopak expanded into temperature monitoring with the iMINI single-use data loggers, iLOG multi-use loggers, and the CryoTrack cloud platform for shipment data retrieval.
Cryopak’s business model pairs packaging products with monitoring loggers, giving pharmaceutical logistics teams a single vendor for both thermal protection and transport temperature verification. Their Montreal base provides a genuine bilingual advantage, with native English and French support for Canadian customers — a capability that few cold chain providers outside Quebec can match.
Cryopak’s recognized strengths include:
- Thermal Packaging + Monitoring Bundle — The ability to source insulated shippers, phase change materials, gel packs, and temperature loggers from one vendor simplifies procurement for pharmaceutical logistics teams managing shipping lane qualifications and transport validation
- Montreal-Based Bilingual Support — Native French and English support from a Quebec headquarters is a real advantage for Canadian facilities, particularly those operating under provincial language requirements. This is a capability Cryopak and ATEK genuinely share
- Cold Chain Logistics Expertise — Nearly thirty years focused on keeping products cold during transport has given Cryopak deep knowledge of shipping lane thermal profiles, packaging design, and transport temperature management that pure monitoring companies do not possess
Common Challenges with Cryopak
Organizations that rely on Cryopak’s packaging and logger products frequently encounter a gap when their monitoring needs extend beyond transport:
- Packaging-first product development: Cryopak’s R&D investment centers on thermal packaging innovation — better insulation, longer-duration phase change materials, more efficient shipper designs. The iMINI/iLOG loggers and CryoTrack platform receive secondary development attention, resulting in monitoring capabilities that lag behind dedicated monitoring providers
- No facility monitoring platform: Once a shipment arrives and the insulated packaging is removed, Cryopak’s monitoring role ends. There is no product for continuous environmental monitoring of the refrigerators, freezers, labs, and cleanrooms where pharmaceutical products are stored long-term
- CryoTrack platform limitations: CryoTrack provides shipment data retrieval and basic reporting for transport loggers, but lacks the compliance automation, real-time alerting, electronic signatures, and audit trail depth that regulated facility environments require under FDA 21 CFR Part 11
- Transport logger calibration vs. facility calibration: Cryopak offers NIST-traceable calibration for their loggers, which serves transport use cases. Permanent facility sensors require ongoing A2LA-accredited calibration with formal traceability documentation, IQ/OQ/PQ validation, and scheduled recalibration programs
- Business-hours support model: Cryopak’s support is geared toward packaging inquiries and shipment logger issues during standard business hours. Facility monitoring demands round-the-clock response — a freezer alarm at 3 AM cannot wait until the packaging team opens in the morning
How ATEK Addresses These Needs
Purpose-Built Facility Monitoring: Cryopak was built to protect products during transport. ATEK was built to monitor the environments where those products live after the packaging is opened. Every capability — sensor placement optimization, room-level alarming, automated compliance reporting, calibration scheduling — addresses the requirements of pharmaceutical facility monitoring in labs, pharmacies, cleanrooms, and cold storage. There is no packaging layer to navigate, and no adaptation of transport tools for stationary use.
5-Minute Live Response, Around the Clock: Both ATEK and Cryopak share the Montreal advantage, but ATEK extends that into guaranteed 24/7 live support with a 5-minute phone response. When a vaccine storage refrigerator triggers an alarm at 2 AM, ATEK’s facility monitoring team is already working. Cryopak’s packaging-focused support operates on business hours — appropriate for shipping inquiries, but insufficient for facility excursions that threaten product integrity overnight.
A2LA-Accredited Calibration Beyond NIST Traceability: Cryopak provides NIST-traceable calibration appropriate for transport loggers making single or limited trips. ATEK’s in-house A2LA-accredited calibration lab in Canada handles the ongoing calibration demands of permanently installed facility sensors: formal accreditation, scheduled recalibration cycles, full traceability documentation, and zero international shipping delays. For cold chain storage environments requiring continuous compliance, accredited calibration is the standard.
All-Inclusive Pricing Without Packaging Tie-Ins: Cryopak’s monitoring pricing is typically bundled with packaging service contracts, making it difficult to isolate the cost of monitoring alone. ATEK’s per-monitoring-point pricing covers hardware, cloud platform, calibration, validation documentation, training, and 24/7 support in a single transparent rate. No packaging minimums, no per-shipment fees, and no ambiguity about what monitoring costs independently.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Factor | Cryopak | ATEK | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thermal packaging solutions | Full product line | Not offered | Cryopak |
| Facility monitoring platform | Not offered | Purpose-built | ATEK |
| Montreal headquarters | Yes | Yes | Comparable |
| Bilingual EN/FR support | Yes | Yes | Comparable |
| Transport data loggers | iMINI / iLOG | Not offered | Cryopak |
| FDA 21 CFR Part 11 | Not available | Full compliance | ATEK |
| Calibration accreditation | NIST-traceable | A2LA-accredited | ATEK |
| 24/7 live support | Business hours | 5-minute guarantee | ATEK |
| Cloud platform maturity | CryoTrack (basic) | Full compliance platform | ATEK |
| Canadian data hosting | Not specified | PIPEDA-compliant hosting | ATEK |
Who Benefits Most from Switching
- Pharmaceutical facilities currently sourcing loggers from Cryopak that have outgrown transport-only monitoring and need continuous environmental oversight of their storage areas, labs, and cleanrooms with real-time alerting and compliance automation
- Organizations separating packaging from monitoring procurement that want a dedicated facility monitoring partner rather than monitoring bundled as an add-on to packaging contracts
- Canadian facilities approaching regulatory audits that need FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, A2LA-accredited calibration documentation, and IQ/OQ/PQ validation for stationary monitoring — capabilities that transport loggers and CryoTrack do not provide
Making the Transition
Switching from Cryopak loggers to ATEK facility monitoring addresses a fundamentally different monitoring need, so the transition adds capability rather than replacing like-for-like:
- Facility assessment — We map your storage environments, identifying every refrigerator, freezer, lab, cleanroom, and cold storage area that currently lacks continuous environmental monitoring after Cryopak’s transport logging ends
- Sensor deployment — ATEK wireless sensors install in your facility environments. Since Cryopak monitors products during shipping and ATEK monitors storage environments, there is no system conflict. Organizations that still need Cryopak’s packaging and transport loggers can continue using them alongside ATEK
- Compliance validation — Complete IQ/OQ/PQ documentation is included for all facility monitoring points. Our team documents FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, Health Canada requirements, and provincial regulations for your QA team — the regulatory layers that CryoTrack’s transport-focused reports do not cover
- Operational handoff — Your team receives training on the ATEK platform, including real-time dashboards, alarm configuration, automated compliance reporting, and 24/7 support escalation procedures. Deployment typically completes within 2-4 weeks per site
When Cryopak May Be the Right Fit
Cryopak is the right choice for organizations whose primary need is thermal packaging for pharmaceutical shipments. Their combined offering of insulated shippers, gel packs, phase change materials, and iMINI/iLOG transport loggers provides a convenient single-vendor solution for shipping lane qualification and transport temperature verification. Organizations that need packaging expertise and basic transport logging without stationary facility monitoring requirements will find Cryopak well-suited to their cold chain logistics needs.
When ATEK Is the Better Choice
Choose ATEK when you need:
- Continuous facility monitoring for the products Cryopak’s packaging protected during shipping — covering labs, pharmacies, cleanrooms, and cold storage after delivery and unpacking
- FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance with electronic signatures, ALCOA+ data integrity, and automated audit trails that CryoTrack and transport loggers do not provide
- A2LA-accredited calibration from a Canadian lab for permanently installed sensors, beyond the NIST-traceable calibration offered for Cryopak’s shipping loggers
- Guaranteed 5-minute live support response around the clock for facility excursions, not business-hours support oriented toward packaging and transport inquiries
- Canadian data hosting with PIPEDA and provincial privacy compliance alongside the bilingual capability both Montreal companies share
Start with a free assessment to see how ATEK’s facility monitoring complements or replaces your current Cryopak monitoring setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does ATEK replace Cryopak for cold chain monitoring?
It depends on what you use Cryopak for. If you rely on Cryopak primarily for thermal packaging and transport loggers, ATEK does not replace that — ATEK covers the facility monitoring side that Cryopak does not offer. If you have been trying to use iMINI or iLOG loggers for stationary facility monitoring, ATEK provides a purpose-built platform with real-time alerting, compliance automation, and A2LA-accredited calibration designed specifically for that use case.
Can Cryopak’s iMINI or iLOG loggers monitor facility environments?
The iMINI and iLOG loggers are designed for transport temperature logging — recording temperature data during shipment for later retrieval via CryoTrack. While they physically measure temperature, they lack continuous real-time alerting, FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, automated facility reporting, room-level alarming, and the A2LA-accredited calibration programs required for permanent installation in regulated storage environments.
Both ATEK and Cryopak are in Montreal. How do they differ?
Despite sharing a city, the two companies solve different problems. Cryopak is a thermal packaging company that added monitoring loggers to complement their shipping solutions. ATEK is a facility monitoring platform company focused exclusively on continuous environmental oversight for regulated environments. Cryopak’s expertise is keeping products cold during transport. ATEK’s expertise is keeping storage environments compliant and monitored around the clock after products arrive.
How does ATEK’s calibration compare to Cryopak’s?
Cryopak provides NIST-traceable calibration for their transport loggers, which is appropriate for devices making limited shipping trips. ATEK operates an in-house A2LA-accredited calibration lab in Canada, providing formal accreditation, scheduled recalibration cycles, and full traceability documentation for permanently installed facility sensors. A2LA accreditation represents a higher standard of calibration assurance recognized by regulatory bodies for stationary monitoring applications.
Is ATEK more expensive than Cryopak’s monitoring loggers?
The pricing models serve different purposes. Cryopak’s logger pricing is typically bundled with packaging service contracts, making direct monitoring-cost comparison difficult. ATEK’s all-inclusive per-monitoring-point pricing covers hardware, cloud platform, calibration, validation documentation, training, and 24/7 support in one transparent rate. For organizations that need facility monitoring rather than transport logging, ATEK’s pricing reflects the additional compliance, support, and platform capabilities included.
Do both companies offer bilingual French and English support?
Yes — this is a genuine shared advantage of both Montreal-based companies. Both ATEK and Cryopak provide native English and French support from Quebec-based teams. The difference is scope and availability: ATEK provides 24/7 bilingual facility monitoring support with a 5-minute response guarantee, while Cryopak’s bilingual support operates during business hours and is oriented toward packaging and transport logger inquiries.