b'MARCH 8 - 21, 2021NORTH AMERICAS TRANSPORTATION & LOGISTI CS NEWSPAPER 17(EMERGEScontinuedone-month rollout. atemperaturespikethatisvaccine supply chain, he said.which way.from page 4) Controlant now offers itscommonplaceeveninmostThe sheer volume of ship- Thiswillgettrickierin AccordingtoHerjolfs- track-and-trace technology tofresh produce. Precise moni- mentstravelingthroughoutthemonthsahead.Through son, this real time data relaya variety of cold-chain relatedtoringmustcontinuefromthesupplychainatonce,buttheWorldHealthOrganiza-enablesnotonlyimmediateindustries including food andthe moment a drug leaves thebound for such disparate des- tionsglobalvaccineaccess alerts, but decisions that canbeverage. plant until it is dispensed, andtinations,makestheCOVIDprogramCovax,vaccines bemadeextremelyquickly.Withinsupplychains,by a variety of players. Allvaccinedistributionextraor- are beginning to roll out too Mostofthevaccinearrivestrack-and-tracetechnologiesof these parties actually havedinarily unique. So, coordina- muchpoorercountries,and without any issues. But say,are developing rapidly. Colda real time visibility through- tion and collaboration betweentheresunderstandablecon-forexample,thesensorschainisnoexceptionandout the entire journey, Her- everyonealongthechainiscern about infrastructure sup-detectatemperaturedevia- temperaturemonitoringarejolfsson explained. all the more important. It alsoport,especiallytemperature tion. A customer immediatelycommonplace. Thisunderscoresanec- means there can be virtually nomaintenance.gets an email saying hold offButpharmaceuticalsaddessarydevelopmentinthetime lag for information to beHerjolfsson,forone,is onusingthesevials.Pfiz- layersofdifficultytotheCOVIDvaccinerollout:thepassedandassessed. AsHer- upbeat that at least the moni-ersqualitycontrolassessesmonitoring process. Herjolfs- breaking down of supply chainjolfssonpointedout,vaccinetoringwontbecompro-thefluctuationanddeter- soncitesatypicalAmazonsilos. The more information iscentersneedtoknowwhenmised. We came together to mineswhetherthevaccinedelivery, where theres a kindshared,themoreefficientthevaccines are arriving, in whatwork on a global solution he isstillOK.Usually,withinof basic visibility technologyprocess. Technologies such asquantity and if there are delays.said. We were able to create 30or40minutes,thecus- thats available for all parties.Controlants facilitate this kindVarious carriers need to knowthisharmonizedsinglepro-tomer receives an email withIn the end, however, a box isof participation, but the varioushow many containers to expectcessforeveryone.Andfor instructions on what to do. left at a doorstep, and thats it.parties involved must be will- andwhen.Themanufacturerme, that was just fantastic.Whatwedidinthising and open to share. Herjolfs- needs to know everything fromWhile attention is squarely projectistomakesurethatp reCISem onItorIng son, for one, believes this hasdelivery schedules to usage tofocusedontheCOVIDvac-all communication would bePharmaceuticals, in gen- been successful with the Covidweather conditions. cines and the necessary supply automatic, said Herjolfsson,eral, and the vaccines in par- vaccine.OneofthemostAnd all this is happeningchain,severalpartiesare who spoke to American Jour- ticular are a different matternotable things we are witness- notjustinonestateoronebeginningtoexaminewhat nal of Transportation (AJOT)entirely.Drugscantjustbeing is an unprecedented levelregionoronecountry,butall this means to the future of over Zoom and also providedleft at the doorstep for pickup.of collaboration among stake- globally. Millions of doses of(EMERGEScontinued on written answers to questions.Norcantherebeariskofholdersthroughouttheentirevaccines are whizzing everypage 20)SoeventhoughImatthe hospital,Idontnecessar-ilyhaveaccesstothesame platform,Imalwaysnoti-fied and I can track my ship-ment when it arrives. It says hey, your product has been released and its good to use or can you please wait for us to analyze something?Thatautomaticpushing ofinformationisabsolutely essential.Forthesheer volume, its very time sensi-tive,environmentsensitive andjustsensitiveoverall. Itssocritical,Herjolfsson said. What the COVID proj-ects have shown and proved, not just to us, but also to the industry, is that the future of supply chain can be done, the trackingautomationcanbe done, said Herjolfsson. b IologICS andb IoSImIlarSPharmaceuticals are moving quickly to what are called bio-logics and biosimilars, drugs thataremadefromliving organismsorhavecompo-nentsoflivingorganisms. These not only require much stricter temperature controls, buttendtobemuchmore costly on a dosage basis than traditional drugs. That means that monitoring a shipment is that much more critical, with more information necessary.Wevesettheprec-edent, Herjolfsson believes. AccordingtoHerjolfs-son,Controlantwasableto developitstechnologyfor theCOVIDvaccinemoni-toring within five months, a process,hesaid,thatwould normally have taken years.The company was founded byHerjolfssonandtwouni-versityfriendsin2007,but madeitsinitialforayinto pharmaceuticals-pharma-ceuticals-relatedmonitoring duringtheH1N1influenza pandemic two years later. The Icelandic government funded Controlants monitoring of the vaccine,aproject,Herjolfs-son said, that demanded just a'