Pharma supply chain – tomorrow’s challenges - Stat Times
Wes Wheeler, president of UPS Healthcare, who was interviewed for the Cargo Masterminds series, identified the future of global supply chain for the life sciences sector with an example from Covid-19 vaccine development and distribution.
“It's interesting to note that moving drugs or vaccines at minus 70 degrees Celsius is actually a little bit simpler than moving drugs at minus 20 degrees Celsius. It does not sound logical, but it is true. Because minus 70 degrees Celsius can travel safely with dry ice as long as it doesn't sublimate. In a short enough time, you can maintain that temperature for quite a long time, up to 10 days. And then, you can, of course, replenish the dry ice to maintain that stability. At minus 20 degrees Celsius, which is more like frozen, a lot of the packaging that we deliver in is time sensitive. Also, the packaging only holds minus 20 degrees Celsius for a certain period of time, sometimes 56 hours, sometimes 72 hours, but not much longer than that. So those materials have to be returned for reuse.”
UPS, which distributed both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, first in the US and later to over 100 countries outside, had designed a very complex but precise supply chain to ensure the stability of the vaccines under a very strict temperature control management.
Wes Wheeler, president of UPS Healthcare, who was interviewed for the Cargo Masterminds series, identified the future of global supply chain for the life sciences sector with an example from Covid-19 vaccine development and distribution.
“It's interesting to note that moving drugs or vaccines at minus 70 degrees Celsius is actually a little bit simpler than moving drugs at minus 20 degrees Celsius. It does not sound logical, but it is true. Because minus 70 degrees Celsius can travel safely with dry ice as long as it doesn't sublimate. In a short enough time, you can maintain that temperature for quite a long time, up to 10 days. And then, you can, of course, replenish the dry ice to maintain that stability. At minus 20 degrees Celsius, which is more like frozen, a lot of the packaging that we deliver in is time sensitive. Also, the packaging only holds minus 20 degrees Celsius for a certain period of time, sometimes 56 hours, sometimes 72 hours, but not much longer than that. So those materials have to be returned for reuse.”
UPS, which distributed both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, first in the US and later to over 100 countries outside, had designed a very complex but precise supply chain to ensure the stability of the vaccines under a very strict temperature control management.
