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Vaccine supply chains must remain water-tight amid the oncoming sea of demand. With the flu season upon us and over 12.3 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, data solutions answer concerns around how to safely prepare for what’s ahead for our industry. SkyCell is now recognized as a critical supplier by the Swiss government and the EU Commission, due to our vital role in sustaining global pharma supply chains and maintaining an audited performance of less than 0.1% temperature excursions. Based on our experience, here’s why data insights are essential to guaranteeing the life-saving distribution of the future coronavirus vaccine.
Data drives worldwide insights
There is little sense in producing a coronavirus vaccine if it cannot be accessed by the billions relying on it. The sheer scale of distribution, along with the particular vulnerability and sensitivity of vaccines in transit, means assessing the worldwide lane network is of paramount importance. The flight delays of lockdown have placed in sharp focus our need for more than a birds-eye view on our supply chains. With 25% of vaccines worldwide currently being degraded due to improper shipment, according to the IATA CEIV report, our industry must find ways to improve — quickly.
Through IoT sensors and remote data pooling, SkyCell has already gathered near a billion data points across an international supply chain, enabling our team to provide informed data-driven risk assessments to our clients through our SkyCell Transport Planner. When there is no room for error, data can help you take a risk-based view. The SkyCell Transport Planner does just that and simulates and predicts SkyCell container performance for different shipping scenarios.
IoT tracking initiates real-time responses
Even after intensive planning, unexpected eventualities will inevitably take place; a pandemic lockdown, for instance. Yet, data remains significant to solving even mid-supply-chain problems; as our container tracking system signals to our human workforce when action needs to be taken by collaborating with partners or by initiating an automatic recharge of the container. Tracking containers allow humans to come together and collaborate in a real-time response, keeping the medicine safe, no matter where it is on our map.
Due to our container’s long-lasting independent run time, automatic recharging capability and integrated data system, temperature-sensitive vaccines are safeguarded even during lengthy journeys to hot countries, and are prepared for unexpected delays. For instance, the lockdown in India resulted in cold storage rooms at Mumbai airport running full during a vital shipment of sensitive pneumococcal and varicella vaccines, yet our solutions kept the medicine safe for 72 hours until they could be released. It is likely that in cases where supply chain data systems aren’t optimized, these medicines would not have made it to patients in need.
Uncertainty requires security
Turbulent times call for heightened awareness of risk and security issues. For this reason, all our IoT sensors are secured with a tamper-proof encrypted technology, ensuring the high-worth, high-cost medicines are protected from tampering as they move from A to B. Following our recent funding round and our new status as critical suppliers, we’re serving more lanes than ever before. As we expand our reach overseas, technological protection of our container solution enables us to serve our clients even under extreme circumstances and most importantly, deliver medicine safe, secure and sustainable to those in need.
