UPS rolls out new cold chain services

Atlanta-based UPS announced this week it has rolled out a new vertical within its pharmaceutical offerings, with the formation of its new UPS Cold Chain Solutions services, which it described as a suite of cold chain technologies, best-in-class capabilities, as well as new and expanded global facilities that offer complete end-to-end temperature-controlled logistics services.

UPS officials observed that various maladies—including cancers, respiratory, autoimmune and cardiovascular conditions—are among the fastest-growing global disease categories, which have, in turn, led to a surge in the development of biologically-derived, temperature-controlled drugs and therapies. And it also cited data from the Biopharma Cold Chain Sourcebook, which observed that cold chain trends are currently showing 48% growth between 2018-2024 for drugs requiring at least 2%-to-8% degrees Celsius storage and shipping. What’s more, UPS added that that market for cold chain services, which includes packaging, transportation, and data services, is pegged to increase by 24% by 2024, following a 10% gain from 2019 to 2020.

“Our customers have been taking advantage of our cold chain capabilities for years, but the pandemic caused UPS to move even faster to enhance an integrated set of cold chain solutions to support the future of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry,” said Wes Wheeler, UPS Healthcare president, in a president. “UPS’s near-perfect, on-time delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine proves how effectively and efficiently our network handles biologically derived drugs, even at extreme temperatures.”

Dan Gagnon, vice president of UPS Healthcare Strategy and Marketing, told LM that UPS Healthcare has provided cold chain options to customers for years. However, the investments and advances made through the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines accelerated the growth of these capabilities, leading to the need for UPS to establish UPS Cold Chain Solutions.

“Now, as temperature-controlled biologics and therapies are becoming more of a focus in the healthcare industry, we found that it was extremely important to develop an end-to-end portfolio of custom cold chain solutions to help drive value to our customers, helping to protect critical healthcare shipments on a global level,” said Gagnon. “UPS Cold Chain Solutions offers shippers peace of mind that their life-changing healthcare shipments will arrive at its end location safely and efficiently, which is evident through our near-perfect on-time delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.”

And he added that more specifically, the expansion and construction of new cold-chain focused facilities in Italy, Australia, Singapore, the U.S. and beyond, as well as customizable shipping options, helps ensure tightly managed storage and distribution, transportation, visibility, and quality assurance for these critical products. Additionally, leveraging UPS Premier technology provides shippers with precise visibility into every single package, down to within 10 feet of its location anywhere in the company’s network, he noted.

When asked what the main competitive benefits of this new offering for UPS, Gagnon said that UPS is the only one in the market with a dedicated healthcare vertical.

“However, what sets UPS Cold Chain Solutions apart from other cold chain offerings available is the size and scale of our network to support temperature-controlled packages, as well as the transparency and connectivity we offer shippers through this end-to-end portfolio,” he said. “These offerings can really be seen through advances we’ve made in the past year. We have 11 million square feet of dedicated healthcare distribution space, located in 32 countries, and we are growing at an average of 1 million square feet per year. We’re also adding more cold chain experts into key parts of our network, like Europe, and we offer pinpoint visibility to the movement of packages through UPS Premier. Ultimately, our cold chain logistics expertise, capabilities and capacity remains unmatched, and we are committed to continually enhancing our care delivery to better support our customers.”