SCD: UPS offers tracking tech, logistics and warehousing in pharma cold chain service

© Alexey Novikov

Sourced from SUPPLY CHAIN DIVE:

Dive Brief:

– UPS is taking the infrastructure and experience it has gained from distributing the COVID-19 vaccine to offer a permanent cold chain solution through its healthcare division that’s focused on the transport of pharmaceutical, temperature-sensitive reagents and other medical-related cargo, the logistics provider announced this week.

– The company is pitching UPS Cold Chain Solutions as end-to-end transportation, where UPS takes care of storage, logistics and freight, all while tracking temperature diversions from command centers in Louisville, Kentucky, and Amsterdam.

– The company realized this type of service was needed in the healthcare space as its subsidiary, Marken, worked with pharmaceutical manufacturers for the clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Dan Gagnon, vice president for global healthcare marketing and strategy at UPS. “We began to see as a company what was going to happen,” Gagnon said. “We saw the innovation in vaccines; we saw that there [were] new vaccines that were coming out that required frozen storage and frozen transportation.”

Dive Insight:

The cold chain for the COVID-19 vaccine was notoriously fickle. This was especially true of the Pfizer vaccine, which required the use of a specially designed insulated box with dry ice inside to keep the temperature at minus 70 degrees Celsius for up to 10 days…

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