(Credit: UPS Healthcare)As the market for cold chain services continues to grow, UPS Healthcare is opening new facilities to extend its supply chain efficency in area while enhancing sustainability goals.
The new UPS Healthcare cold chain and packaging center is in Louisville, Kentucky, is the company's first in the United States to offer reusable cold chain packaging options. The company says it will help it increase its cold chain offerings to improve efficiency in transporting products.
UPS Healthcare’s temperature-controlled facilities are designed to handle pharmaceutical drugs and other healthcare products, regardless of temperature. The company says an example of the need for a long-range efficient cold chain system is COVID-19 vaccine delivery.
The overall market for cold chain services, including packaging, transportation and data, is expected to grow by 24% by 2024, according to UPS Healthcare, after growing 10% from 2019 to 2020. According to Biophrama Cold Chain Source Book, cold chains are expected to grow 48% from 2018 to 2024 for medicines that require at least 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees Celsius for storage and shipping.
UPS Healthcare says the new facility will help utilize and improve the lifecycle of temperature-controlled packages. That will also help with sustainability goals and cut down on single-use waste cold chain packaging. The company says within three years using as implementing as much as 5,600 such reusable packaging could eliminate 2,000 tons of waste.
According to the International Trade Commission, more than $260 billion of bio-pharma sales are dependent on cold chains. The commission also says the food industry loses more than $750 billion a year because of proper cold chain procedures.
Cold chain issues are becoming part of a sustainable focus. Earlier in 2021 Carrier said it would invest more than $2 billion in cold chain services to help reduce lifecycle impacts on products and increase sustainable design principles.
UPS Healthcare now operates 125 GMP and GDP facilities in 34 countries.
