Biocair, a courier service specializing in serving biotechnology providers, seeks the latest technology for monitoring and visibility of cell and gene-therapy shipments. 

Few industries manage supply chains as critical as those of the pharmaceutical, biotech and life sciences sectors. Cell therapy shipments are valued at nearly $500,000, and gene therapies can exceed $1 million per treatment course. Not surprisingly, the need for total visibility, reliability and excellent customer service on the logistics end is intense. 

Biocair has 35 years of experience providing global logistics and supply chain management services for cell and gene therapy (CGT) companies. But there’s always room for improvement. Responding to customer feedback, it set out in 2021 to upgrade its cold-chain packaging. In addition to ensuring consistency of temperature during shipment, the company needed to provide pinpoint tracking and visibility of sensitive and expensive product. 

Biocair was already employing data loggers and other devices to capture information about cold-chain shipments in transit, but it sought to upgrade to a monitoring service that took advantage of 5G cellular communications. That desire led it to Tive, a provider of technology tools for ensuring real-time visibility of shipments. 

Emily Gaither, Biocair’s packaging solutions coordinator, saw the engagement with Tive as an opportunity to keep pace with increasingly strict guidelines and customer expectations for the handling of CGT shipments. She says Tive’s Solo 5G connectivity was able to provide “hyper-accurate” location updates in real time. 

Gaither’s choice of Tive came after an intensive comparison of various devices on the market for location monitoring. The exercise included both static and dynamic routing tests, and the analysis of temperature data against logging devices. 

Gaither says Tive offered multiple advantages to Biocair, including better overall performance; a user-friendly platform; ease of setup, training and onboarding the technology; the ability to customize alerts and transmission intervals; a high quality of customer service and technical support, and 5G “future-proofing.” 

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Tive’s Solo 5G tracker uses real-time GPS tracking capabilities that are accurate to within 10 meters anywhere in the world. Available in models powered by both lithium and non-lithium batteries, the devices can be programmed according to the user’s preference for intervals between measurement and communication transmissions. Data recorded by the sensors include humidity, light, motion, shock and temperature, with alerts sent when any of those elements falls out of tolerance. 

“Tive checks all of the technology boxes,” Gaither says, citing “an easy-to-navigate customer portal, 5G real-time location and temperature monitoring, and all of the things that are fast becoming must-haves in terms of supply chain tracking — humidity, shock events and light exposure.” 

Having fully qualified Tive’s Solo 5G GPS trackers, Biocair’s logistics team began deploying them to acquire location data on CGT shipments for pre-clinical work and clinical trials. The initial stages of use involved more than 30 successful live shipments to CGT clients in multiple locations, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Frankfurt, Germany. 

After just six months of use, the devices were already delivering clear benefits, Biocair says. In one case, the company was able to recover a shipment that the airline claimed was lost after it failed to make its scheduled flight. The Solo 5G tracker pinpointed the precise location at Los Angeles International Airport. 

The technology provided Biocair’s team with the data needed to make instant decisions in the event of potential or actual disruptions. In the event, they were able to expedite the ordering of replacement shipments as needed. “Tive positions us to be proactive rather than reactive,” Gaither says. 

Biocair has round-the-clock access to Tive’s customer support team, and in turn is able to immediately answer queries by its own clients about shipment status, according to the company. “Our partnership with Tive demonstrates to our clients that we remain on the cutting edge of technology and medicine to better service them,” Gaither says. 

The tracking technology also has improved the company’s sustainability performance, by making it possible to retrieve reusable packaging through the use of real-time data generated by the Solo 5G devices. 

“As Biocair grows,” Gaither says, “we want to bring along Tive devices.” 

Resource Links:

Biocair, https://www.biocair.com/

Tive, https://www.tive.com/