Your alternatives when shipping temperature sensitive products!

Making Decisions In The Pharma Cold Chain

Source: Life Science Leader

By Fred Olds
For the pharma industry, the challenges of cold chain transport continue to grow. The consequence of error or omission can be serious for patient safety — and company financial viability.

Technology has made both the health products and the capability to transport and monitor them in transit more complex. Mark Mohr, manager of product development and specialty sales for Continental Airlines, says logisticians welcome new technology to improve efficiency, but are alert for unintended consequences. For instance, to reduce weight and increase fuel economy, composite material is replacing aluminum in new airframes. Aluminum transfers heat better than composite by a factor of 20% to 200%. This change in material could result in a critical temperature difference that affects the efficacy of pharmaceuticals in transit with his airline. Pharma has to rely on transportation service providers to resolve questions like this and ship products under the strict conditions needed to preserve efficacy. The ultimate responsibility, however, still falls on the pharma company.

Planning
“There is never enough planning,” says Bob Gahan, VP Global Sales – Healthcare for DB Schenker Inc., and planning needs to start as early as possible. Each shipment is a singular experience regardless of how often it’s been done before. Gahan says unexpected events have a way of nudging critical steps in plans. During his daughter’s spring break in April 2010, Gahan had planned time with his family. Unexpectedly, much of European airspace was closed by the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. He recalls using contingency plans to reroute shipments on his cell phone while attending his daughter’s lacrosse games.

At the Boston Marathon, he received a call to secure an urgent delivery of blood product to Europe. Passenger flights were not operating. The only option was to charter a 767 all-cargo freighter. Spain was open, but overburdened with other rerouting. Late that evening after a day of coordination between the United States and Europe, the manufacturer and Gahan agreed on an alternative option. Leipzig was open, and the manufacturer had enough resources there to arrange receipt of the product. Working with governmental agencies, manufacturer reps obtained landing rights for Leipzig in 6 hours under a “medical emergency,” normally a five-day process.