This reporter? Wang Pengjie
With the vaccine against "new crown pneumonia" of major pharmaceutical companies around the world on the market one after another, the focus of the market has gradually shifted from the vaccine itself to the cold-chain logistics of transporting the vaccine. According to Global Market Insights, the global biomedical cryogenic storage market size was $2.75 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $3.65 billion in 2025. However, the outbreak of epidemics has greatly accelerated the growth rate of this market size. Guorong Securities pointed out that after the successful development of the vaccine, the new increment of the cold chain transportation market is more than 7.2 times, in addition to the huge overseas market, the global demand for cold chain transportation will be very large, and the related vaccine cold chain enterprises will usher in opportunities.
Figure source: Visual China
U.S. ultra-low-temperature vaccine transportation is difficult
While governments attach great importance to the transportation of vaccine cold chain, the difficulties in front of it are huge. The reporter learned from an expert Du Hong (a pseudonym), who has been engaged in international cold chain transportation for many years, that the difficulty of cold chain transportation of vaccines lies in the vulnerability of the vaccine itself, as well as its timeliness, mode of transportation, and temperature control have very high requirements. In addition, modern logistics multi-point transportation, decentralized warehousing and multimodal mode of transport, but also to make the vaccine logistics has become a multi-involved, wide-ranging, complex cross-scheduling problems, which has formed a huge test of the entire logistics industry.
At the same time, the storage and transportation conditions of several vaccines are different, which is a test of the scheduling and coordination ability of the cold chain logistics industry. China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing Pharmaceutical Logistics Branch (hereinafter referred to as the CFLP Pharmaceutical Logistics Branch), the types of vaccines currently under development are divided into inactivated vaccines and mRNA vaccines, different technical routes of vaccines in the transportation of different temperature requirements. Domestic mainstream "new crown" inactivated vaccine temperature requirements for 2 ℃ -8 ℃, the transportation conditions are relatively less complex; but to the United States Pfizer and the German biotechnology company BioNTech co-development of the "new crown" mRNA vaccine. "However, the mRNA vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech, for example, requires a transport environment of -70℃ in order to realize long-time preservation, and the harshness of the transport environment increases the pressure of the logistics party concerned - this kind of ultra-low-temperature environment puts forward high requirements for the technological design of the transportation tools (such as ultra-low-temperature refrigerated boxes) and logistics solutions. The
Qingdao CIMC Refrigerated Transportation Equipment Co., Ltd. has been engaged in the export of refrigerated transportation equipment for many years, and its business scope covers major countries around the world. The person in charge of the marketing department of the enterprise said to the reporter that the company is currently holding off on accepting orders for vaccine transportation equipment from the U.S. The reason for this is that, after research, the cost of using mechanical refrigeration equipment to keep the temperature at -70℃ for a long period of time on a transportation vehicle is too high, and it is almost unprofitable, "After our calculations, even if the 300 million people in the U.S. are all inoculated with Pfizer vaccines, and with the transportation methods such as air transport with dry ice refrigeration, the cost will be too high. After our calculations, even if all 300 million people in the U.S. were vaccinated with Pfizer vaccines, with dry ice, air transport and other transportation methods, their market window would only be about six months. The demand for this equipment will not be very high, and there is no ongoing demand for it, so even when the equipment is manufactured, its cost will be too high."
In the U.S. mainland enterprises are also looking for solutions, according to CNN reported on the 12th of this month, a named "Cold King" of the U.S. veteran cold-chain transport enterprises will be the company originally used for frozen tuna container transport technology modified for the "New Crown" vaccine transport. "vaccine transportation. Pfizer launched the "new crown" vaccine requires cold chain transportation temperature as low as -70 ° C, while the previous "cold king" company long-distance transport of tuna cold chain transportation temperature can be as low as -60 ° C, and its special containers can be stored 300,000 pills of Pfizer new crown vaccine. In recent months, Cold King has asked its factories in China to produce more of the new cold-chain transportation equipment.
Pharmaceuticals and logistics firms are working together
Once a vaccine currently in development is approved for the market, pharmaceutical companies will need to get large quantities of the vaccine around the world as quickly as possible, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. To make that happen, the industries involved are creating a complex and high-risk supply chain at a speed and scale rarely seen before. As a result, the pharmaceutical industry needs to adapt raw material sourcing and factory capacity to produce vaccines in large quantities, and it needs to work with logistics companies to create channels that can deliver millions of doses of vaccine, which must have strict temperature controls and security. Notably, every step of the supply chain has the potential for error, resulting in the loss of valuable vaccines in bulk.
Du Hong argues that pharmaceuticals are fundamentally different from other commodities, with extremely high temperature and humidity requirements and a high susceptibility to damage. "We (pharmaceutical companies) need a tight and seamless logistics supply chain from the company's warehouse to the consignee's hands at the port of destination, which is a challenge for logistics. As logistics practitioners, due to the special nature of cold chain drug transportation, we need to face the test of warehousing, land transportation, loading and unloading and other ground work, and for our entire logistics system, vaccine transportation not only requires timeliness, but also to ensure safety. For the time being, many companies have already achieved real-time supervision of commodities, from logistics location to temperature and so on every link can be real-time through the APP to show to customers."
Demand for China to speed up the development of cold chain logistics
After calculations, mankind needs more than 10 billion doses of vaccine in order to overcome the "new crown" epidemic, even if the capacity to improve, but also to 2024 to achieve the global 80% of the population to complete the vaccination. And the current developed countries have been in the rush to buy stockpile vaccines, the booking volume is very large, resulting in a number of developing countries may have to 2023 or 2024 to vaccinate, which requires countries to collaborate with each other, *** with the same face to solve the "new crown" vaccine production, transportation and vaccination needs, so that the vaccine resources can be distributed more equitably around the globe. This will require collaboration between countries*** to address the production, transportation and vaccination needs of the "new crown" vaccine, so that vaccine resources can be more equitably distributed globally.
Data from the China Federation of Pharmaceutical Logistics Branch shows that China is stepping up the progress of research and development and production of the "new crown" vaccine, there are five "new crown" vaccine phase III clinical trials, the number of the world's leading, the whole process has entered the sprint The whole process has entered the sprint stage. At the same time, China's "new crown" vaccine is also ready for large-scale production, it is estimated that in 2021 China will have a production capacity of 1.6 billion doses. At present, China's four vaccines have received nearly 16 countries nearly 500 million doses of vaccine contracts, and the number is still growing. According to Du Hong, low cost and transportation convenience have increased the attractiveness of China's vaccines, and under the influence of the huge demand side, "On a comprehensive view, the growth rate of China's pharmaceutical cold-chain logistics industry is expected to reach 20% next year, and the growth rate of cold-chain logistics will reach more than 10.3%."
This article comes from the author of the automobile home car family number, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.