Supply Chain

Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) today started air delivery of pharmaceutical products and medical supplies via Zipline drone in North Carolina. San Francisco-based Zipline won FAA Part 135 air carrier certification for the long-range flights earlier this month. The company flew its first commercial deliveries on June 22 with an initial 16-nautical-mile flight. The flights starting today…

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) announced today that it will invest $120 million into its Kalamazoo, Michigan facility to support U.S.-based production of its COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir). The investment is expected to create more than 250 additional, high-skilled jobs at the Kalamazoo site. The money will expand the production of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and registered…

MedTrace Pharma announced the first person scanned in its Rapid-Water-Flow Phase 3 clinical trial, further testing its tech to bring 15 O-water to imaging. The first subject scan took place at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, using 15 O-water produced, dosed and injected through MedTrace’s P3 automated delivery system. The clinical trial aims to evaluate…

The NIH recently announced that it has started enrolling adults for a Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating various additional COVID-19 booster shots. NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is sponsoring the COVID-19 Variant Immunologic Landscape (COVAIL) trial. “We are looking beyond the Omicron variant to determine the best strategy to protect against…

The tensions facing the global supply chain have been building in the pharmaceutical industry since even before the pandemic began, said Apurva Saraf, CEO of privately-held Cosette Pharmaceuticals (South Plainfield, New Jersey), in a recent interview. About five years ago, China, a central producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), began shutting down tens of thousands…

COVID-19 vaccine development and rollout were crucial to gaining control of the pandemic. When the success of these efforts became dependent on the ability to maintain lower than typical temperatures during distribution, the importance of reliable and continuous cold chain solutions for mRNA-based formulations was thrust into the spotlight. Beyond pandemic mitigation measures and outside…

Medtech and pharma companies continue to support Ukraine relief efforts following Russia’s invasion. Previously, the World Health Organization announced that it was sending “essential medical supplies” to Ukraine — including its first shipment of 36 metric tons of supplies for trauma care and emergency surgery and other health supplies — to meet the needs of more than…

Roche (SIX:RO, ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY) announced that it would ship 150,000 packages of the antibiotic Rocephin to Ukraine, among other medical supplies, including diagnostics. Rocephin is a broad-spectrum cephalosporin antibiotic. The World Health Organization cites it as an essential medicine. Basel, Switzerland–headquartered Roche noted in a statement that it is working with various international and local…

Earlier this year, Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH) became one of the first healthcare companies to partner with Ember Technologies (Westlake Village, California), a developer of temperature-controlled mugs. At the heart of the partnership is not a smart mug but the Ember Cube, a self-refrigerated, cloud-based shipping container. Cardinal plans on first using the Ember Cube to…

HHS will fully establish a program to provide loans, grants and other types of funding to expand the U.S. health resources industrial base, the White House announced today. The news was part of a package of actions the Biden administration is taking to support American manufacturing and boost supply chains. The White House briefing statement…