In planning documents, the CDC described preparations for two Covid vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer. The lists the technical details of the vaccines, including the time between doses and their storage temperatures.
The govt. has already advance funded for manufacturing and production. There are extraordinary complexity of distributing vaccines to hundreds of millions of people in the country. This undertaking can go awry. For example, in March 2009, a pandemic strain H1N1 emerged, but large deliveries of the vaccine didn’t start until December, and only 24% of Americans received it by April 2010. Fortunately, that strain turned out to be much milder. This is not the case with Covid-19 with 185K deaths already. The rapid deployment of e vaccine is more urgent.
The CDC told plans limited doses in late October – 2m doses of most likely the Pfizer (Vaccine A) and 10 to 20 million possibly available by November, and 20 million to 30 million by the end of December. The second (Vaccine B) is Moderna – 1 million doses available by October, 10 million by November and 15 million by December. Each of the vaccines would require two doses to be effective.
Freezer Farm
I believe that there is a great opportunity for shippers to handle these shipments and get transportation/distribution/supply chain contracts directly from the government and provide SLA/authenticity assurances. Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines require a lot of care in their handling. For example, Moderna’s vaccine requires storage at minus 20 degrees Celsius; Pfizer’s has to stay at minus 70. The distribution operation—taking drugs from far-flung manufacturing sites to medical teams via warehouses, cargo terminals, airports and final storage points, all in a matter of days—promises to be a logistics high-wire act with risks at every stage. Logistics providers are building giant cold-storage facilities, or “freezer farms,” and lining up equipment and transportation capacity as they gear up for the rapid delivery of millions of doses of potential coronavirus vaccines not only in USA but around the world including portable freezers. Breakdowns, refrigeration issues, transportation delays, broken packaging or other mishaps could leave many thousands of doses useless.
Once vaccines are ready to move, the doses will head into airfreight networks. And if distribution begins during the peak holiday shipping season in November or December, companies will be shipping the drugs when cargo space is at a premium. The huge amount of volume to hit transportation networks around peak season. This distribution will be a marathon not a sprint. It will translate into significant revenue by December as well as beyond. Both UPS and FDX gears up to ship COVID19 vaccine when ready. The scope of the effort and the humanitarian opportunity is unprecedented. They both have to assure minus 80 temperature during the logistics and supply chain. All of these complexities are being worked by the pharma companies and Washington with the help of logistics providers and forward freight companies. FDX has dramatically increased the dry ice carriage amount for most of the aircraft fleet that allow them to service more health care shippers. UPS will handle fragile vaccine with frozen carbon dioxide to maintain temperatures during movement between trucks and planes and two new freezer farms. DHL Global Forwarding USA in recent years has also moved to increase its share of the medical business. DHL now has eight new cold-chain facilities in the U.S., including a new center in Indianapolis that opened in July part from 430,000-square-foot facility at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
Bottomline, people need vaccines. Trump is serious about this. The puzzle is how to ship from manufacturing to clinics. This is a massive distribution opportunity. Air cargo capacity is limited, plus e-commerce/DTC volume is higher and shipping costs are elevated. Vaccine supply chains are exponentially more complex than PPE supply chain. Imagine a need 8,000 Cargo Planes because a single Boeing 777 freighter can carry 1 million individual doses of a vaccine. That means airlifting double dosage to protect half the world’s population would require the space in about 8,000 cargo planes. It’s doable, but not without a coordinated global strategy that includes USA!! Another capacity issue involves refrigeration.
So guys, please evaluate. If you wanna part of this coming wave as an investor!
Happy Investing!!