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1rem

The company has financially committed $13.1 million into the project.

UPS Healthcare Opens Healthcare Logistics Facility in Dublin

A one-on-one with Thermo Fisher’s Wilfredo Marin, who dives into the value of ultra-low temperature storage, the need for flexibility in the cold chain logistics space, and more. 

The Relationship Between Cold Chain Logistics and Cell & Gene Therapies

Session addresses the challenges of implementing autologous/allogeneic cell gene therapies into scalable networks.

LogiPharma Europe 2024: Obstacles Surrounding Personalized Therapy Supply Chains 

Panel discussion uncovers how to alter one’s digital know-how for use in temperature-controlled supply chain. 

LogiPharma Europe 2024: A Digital Capability Transformation

The collaboration strengthens the capabilities of Tower’s advanced passive temperature-controlled containers.

Tower Cold Chain Partners with ELPRO, Debuts Near Real-Time Tracking and Monitoring Feature

Cathy O'Brien UPS Health Sustainability

: What technology in the sustainability space are players in the industry adopting?

I think we need to do a lot more. When I look at what is here at LogiPharma, and when we look at what's available on the market, the big focus continues to be the container providers. We see all the packaging companies, the container companies, they're all investing in new technology that's more sustainable. How do you get a more sustainable cold chain container? That’s kind of been the story for last few years around sustainability. Obviously, vehicles are becoming more sustainable. We know that there's the big talk about sustainable aviation fuel. But for us, we're really looking at how can you use an efficient network to avoid waste. It’s linked to the masterclass. Today, we showed in the masterclass that $36 billion worth of drug product is wasted every year because of broken cold chain. So, you can adopt all these containers, which is fantastic and make them sustainable. But if you're still going to have to overproduce, oversupply, and waste and destroy product, it's not sustainable. You need to look to look at the grassroots problem, which is that we have a network that doesn't work for moving pharma product. How do you remove that waste out of the supply chain? Again, for me, that’s an area where we need to do a lot more work and investment on which we talked about today in our master class. But the innovations in technology for example, how do you make sure that an aircraft is fully utilized? That's another area where we work on heavily. We have what we call the smart logistics network and an Orion technology. That technology basically ensures that our drivers take the fastest route, they use less miles, they're for you using less fuel. Also, we’re building very efficient networks, like our aircraft, our trucks, they leave full so we’re not wasting space. When you say what technology is out there, I haven't really seen and maybe I haven't walked around enough today, but I haven’t really seen anything unique in the technology space here that we aren’t already using. What I have seen when talking to pharma companies is that more of them are actually adopting the technology that is out there with the new containers, so that’s cool. But I do think that it’s kind of superficial and we need to make sure that we're looking at the root cause of the problem, which is overcomplicated supply chains, overproduction of the product, and not managing some of that risk, so that you don’t have to basically waste product, which is not sustainable from a cost perspective, from a transport perspective, etc.

Why are control and transparency so critical in the healthcare logistics space?

At the end of the day, it's the patients, right? When you think about it, the product is going to the patient. If you don’t have the control and visibility on the whole chain along the way and if you know how long it sat on the tarmac for, then you know this patient is at the end of it. Controlling visibility is very important for a few reasons. The data needs to be able to act if there's a problem and to serve the patient as quickly as possible with the drug that they need. We talked in the masterclass about decision making. Being able to make those decisions earlier will lead back to a lot more of an efficient supply chain. In a way, it’s all interconnected. Control and visibility allow the manufacturers to produce what they need to produce when they need to produce it, supply it where it needs to go, but also manage the issues before they occur. The more data we have, the more control, the more visibility than the better decisions we all can make in order to make sure we're serving the patient at the end of at the end of the supply chain, which is what is most important.

In an interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Cathy O'Brien, VP of Sales, UPS Healthcare discusses current technology that the pharma industry is adopting when it comes to sustainability.

Latest Conference Coverage

LogiPharma Europe 2024: UPS Healthcare VP of Sales Talks Technology and Sustainability

Cathy O'Brien Cold Chain UPS Healthcare

: What specific trends have you noticed the show?

There’s a lot of tech developments. It’s probably the first year where I've noticed a lot of the innovation is coming from the tech space around digital technology control and visibility. There’s been some cool and innovative tech ideas coming from companies where they're looking at how do you get that control and visibility right to the final mile, right to the patient. That’s probably the newest trend I've seen in terms of where the focus is on new innovations. A lot of the other trends we’ve been talking about for awhile are cold chain management, cold chain solutions, capacity in the cold chain, as well as sustainability, which is always in these events over the last five years, a hot topic as we all know.

: You recently led a “masterclass” on delivering agility in supply chains by building a multimodal cold chain network while also reducing risks. What did that entail?

We had a high turnout. We were talking a lot about the challenges that we've seen since COVID. But I don’t want to talk about COVID, it’s in the past. But since COVID, we've seen so much disruption. We’ve seen the war in the Ukraine, we now have the war in the Middle East, and we're seeing the Suez Canal channel challenges. The whole discussion was about all those challenges happening in pharma, which are for the most part uncontrollable. There are external factors you can’t control. How do you control the areas you can control? If we look at the cold chain network that is mostly used by pharma today, there's many breaks and risks in that cold chain. The whole discussion was around how to mitigate those risks. How do you remain agile, resilient, in the face of all this disruption by making decisions that you can actually make to reduce risk in your supply chain, which many of the pharma companies in the room today admitted, they're a bit slower to make change? When it comes to logistics, supply chain collaborations, and partnerships, they tend to continue to do what they've always done. So, we were kind of challenging that whole concept, and then talking about what if you could actually control the whole end to end supply chain with what we call your closed network, meaning you have the same provider right from the beginning of the journey, right to when you deliver the product, either to the patient or to the hospital or to the final mile. You call it that chain of custody, it doesn't get broken. What would that do to mitigate your risk? That was the main discussion point. UPS is investing heavily in healthcare; we have been doing so for the last 15 to 20 years. But since 2019, we have invested billions of dollars in expanding the cold chain capabilities. Now we’re on the next two-to-three-year journey, which is how do we bring our cold chain freight network to our customers and really look at that cost study ownership and the control and visibility that I just talked about. When you marry the control and visibility of the technology that's out there with a network like UPS’, then you really can address that broken cold chain and those risks in the cold chain.

In an interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Cathy O'Brien, VP of Sales, UPS Healthcare discusses her masterclass on delivering agility in supply chains by building a multimodal cold chain network while also reducing risks at LogiPharma Europe 2024. 

LogiPharma Europe 2024: Delivering Agility in Supply Chains Through Building Multimodal Cold Chain Networks

Tower Cold Chain LogiPharma Europe 2024

: What are you hoping to accomplish at LogiPharma Europe?

As a supplier and producer of cold chain packaging, we're predominantly here to speak to our customers, deliver what we believe are groundbreaking solutions to meet their needs, and just get a get a feel for where the industry is going and ensure that our product base and our offering matches that requirement.

: What trends have you noticed at the show?

I think building on previous years, we’re seeing more interest in IoT, digital technology, the ability to build smart, and intelligent functionality into the products from a number of our competitors. Obviously, we're delivering that as well through a number of partnerships with digital companies.

We’re seeing more development in the small box market, through cell and gene therapy, patient-centered therapies, direct-to-patient and higher value, smaller volume products. There’s a couple of new technologies that we’ve seen that are quite interesting. I think the industry is moving forward.

: How do you envision the future of cell & gene therapies, especially pertaining to cold chain storage?

I think with cell and gene therapy, generally there seems to be a bit of a split between -80°C solutions, or -60°C to -80°C and then cryogenic obviously below -150°C. We currently have a collaboration with CRYOPDP to expand our offering into the cryogenic area. We’re also working with CRYOPDP with our own products in terms of dry ice and higher temperatures. I think everybody's waiting for cell and gene therapy to really take off. It’s been predicted for a number of years, and it seems to be starting to move now. We’re seeing a lot more interest from our customer base in it, but not with significant volumes that I think the industry was potentially predicting two or three years ago. I think one of the key things that we'll see going forward is more collaboration, whether that be in the ability to offer a broader range of products, or again from a sustainability standpoint, to try and improve return logistics on reusable solutions as well. We’re seeing a number of companies now that are collaborating more, and we’re trying to do that ourselves.

: How can companies in the industry collaborate on sustainability?

I'm relatively new to the industry. I've been with Tower for three years, and one of the things that horrifies me is the amount of single-use packaging that the industry uses. Well over 50% of all pallet shippers and small boxes are single use. That’s an inordinate amount of waste and a huge environmental impact. I’m hopeful that we can start persuading. Particularly now, people are more interested in the sustainability side of their business. So, our business is based on product life that exceeds well over five years, therefore much more circular solutions, and much better sustainability and low-waste opportunity. From a product development perspective, the challenge is building it now with robustness for no penalty of weight or volume, which we're starting to see now. I think as product values get higher, the potential of waste is much more significant. 

In an interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Martin Hawes, Global Head of Product Development, Tower Cold Chain offers insights on the future of cell & gene therapies when it comes to cold chain storage. 

LogiPharma Europe 2024: Tower Cold Chain Global Head of Product Development Discusses the Future of Cell & Gene Therapy and Cold Chain Storage

Niklas Adamsson Envirotainer Cold Chain LogiPharma

PC: How can data and digital tools help improve visibility and risk management when it comes to cold chain shipping?

I think data is the key for the industry moving forward from several dimensions. It's not only about risk, but about sustainability and cost control. We have to be holistic when it comes to the balancing act of these three factors, where data is going to be playing a vital role in being successful. We have both data pre-shipment, meaning risk mitigation, doing trade analysis based on historical data. Is this the right choice or do you need to change? When you have a new lane coming up, how should you deal with that? So that's kind of using data, pre-shipment in evaluating this situation. Then of course, data and visibility is key during shipment. In this kind of volatile world that we live in with all these potential disruptions, we need to act fast as an industry. If something comes up, the ability to act is based on live data, which is crucial to the product. With post-shipment, we need to do a root cause analysis. In that case, data is vital, because we need to understand what happened. You can really see how data plays a vital role before, during, and after the shipment. From our perspective, we use data also for our internal purposes, because we capture data from our equipment every 10 minutes. We use that based on machine learning AI to develop predictive maintenance algorithms, which means that we are being more efficient and maintaining our fleet, making sure that we are able to respond even faster to our customers. 

PC: Could you discuss the growing focus on sustainability and the importance of reducing emissions in the pharma supply chain?

I think sustainability is one of the key elements for everybody here. It's our responsibility not only for our generation, but for future generations. For us, sustainability is twofold. First, it's about about being able to provide the most sustainable equipment to the market, making sure that we maximize the payload, minimize the weight, making sure that we provide the most sustainable solution. Second, it's about how you operate. We need to make sure the scope three emissions are as low as possible. What's in our control is making sure that our customers can avoid doing unnecessary empty container repositioning. That's why we launched our one way program, which means that our customers can more or less pick up a unit anywhere in the world and drop it off anywhere. By avoiding empty container repositioning, which is not good for a sustainability material, we are able to leverage our global network to make sure that those units are used instead of being moved empty. So I think sustainability is really one of the key aspects. But coming back to what I mentioned before is that the balancing act between sustainability, cost and risk, I think it's dangerous to only focus on sustainability. Because if you only look at sustainability, you may actually lose your focus on risk and cost control. However, if you do it with a more structured holistic approach, focusing on sustainability, you actually may be able to minimize the risk as well. But you now need to kind of have a balanced view on it. The risk is that if you only focus on sustainability this year, in a few years, you're gonna see costs increasing, because you left that behind. However, these three are highly interconnected. If you're smart dealing with sustainability, you will be able to address risks, as well as address cost control.

In an interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Niklas Adamsson, COO, Envirotainer, suggests how to improve visibility and risk management for cold chain shipping. 

LogiPharma Europe 2024: Niklas Adamsson Discusses Ways to Improve Visibility and Risk Management for Cold Chain Shipping

Envirotainer Cold Chain LogiPharma

: How are changing customer needs and global trends reshaping cold chain logistics?

I think there's several parts of that, especially with terms of global trends. I think we live in a very uncertain world with geopolitical or environmental uncertainty, which means that we as a supply chain industry need to adapt. We need to make sure that we are prepared for any disruptions we may face in the coming years. We have seen a number of geopolitical situations as well as natural disasters, which we need to cope with. I think that's one of the key trends that we as an industry need to cope with. Given the fact that more and more products gets produced and are temperature sensitive, it puts even more pressure on supply chain in this very uncertain world. It's an ever changing world we live in and we really need to adapt and be be focused on what we do.

PC: What kind of unforeseen disruptions must the pharma cold chain adapt to?

I think there's several parts with the political situations we are facing now, especially the Middle East, as well as in the Red Sea, which has some potential disruptions that we need to deal with. Also, recent flooding. Dubai airport was closed the other day for a few hours. Those are the things that I think we need to prepare for, and I think we as an industry have been able to develop ourselves and develop the operating procedures to really be able to cope with that rapid response based on our post-pandemic experiences. 

In an interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Niklas Adamsson, COO, Envirotainer, offers his thoughts on how changing customer needs are affecting cold chain logistics. 

LogiPharma Europe 2024: Envirotainer COO Discusses Reshaping Cold Chain Logistics and Adapting to Disruptions

 Editor, Nicholas Saraceno, Niklas Adamsson, COO, Envirotainer, offers his thoughts on the future of cold chain storage and transportation. 

Niklas Adamsson shares his perspective on the future of cold chain storage and transportation. 

Cold Chain

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