Last mile pharmaceutical shipment monitoring made easy

In the next few years, it is predicted the global demand for vaccines will be around 15bn doses. In terms of Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, according to the WHO there are growing concerns that supply shortages in many African countries are holding back the continuing rollout. We speak to the CEO of Logmore, Niko Polvinen about how the company’s innovative data loggers are ideal for ensuring last mile delivery of COVID-19 vaccines. By Abby Vorster

HOW CAN LOGMORE HELP HEALTHCARE AGENCIES AND GOVERNMENTS OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES OF DISTRIBUTING COVID-19 VACCINES TO PEOPLE IN AFRICA?

Polvinen: Accessibility has played a big role in our product development. We reach a good coverage of shipments by ensuring that the devices used for temperature monitoring are affordable, don’t require new infrastructure, and are overall easy and fast to deploy into daily operations. The only things a logistics provider would need to use the service are the loggers, which are known as Logmore Guardians, and a smartphone with an internet connection.

WHAT SUCCESSES HAS LOGMORE HAD IN TERMS OF PLAYING A VITAL ROLE IN GLOBAL VACCINE DELIVERY?

Polvinen: So far Logmore has been used to secure over 10mn doses of COVID-19 vaccines. We are working with multiple global carriers of the vaccine, which have brought our Logmore data loggers to most continents already. While Asia was one of the first regions we went to with our partners, our more recent arrival in Africa has been interesting. It has been eye-opening to see how uniquely suited our service is to shipments destined for rural areas as well as inter-city use.

HOW DOES LOGMORE ENSURE LOGISTICS QUALITY IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL SUPPLY CHAIN?

Polvinen: As you know, pharmaceuticals tend to be very temperature sensitive. With Logmore, companies can make sure their products have been transported safely regardless of which service provider handles the transportation process.

Logmore is a combination of accurate temperature monitoring data loggers and a highly secure cloud service. Data from the data loggers is uploaded to the cloud by scanning a QR code. Should there be any occurrences that require further investigation, the recipient and the shipper are both alerted immediately when the shipment reaches the destination.

CONSIDERING LOGMORE’S RAPID GROWTH, WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE COMPANY?

Polvinen: The company is certainly growing fast. We’ve almost tripled our headcount in the past year and will almost triple it again in the next 12 months. We want to be close to our customers on all continents to help them succeed. Currently, we’re working on establishing regional offices in Frankfurt, Germany and the USA. A lot of the world’s pharmaceuticals are distributed from those two locations, so it makes sense to be where the shipments start.

Later this year, we’re looking into branching out in Asia and Africa. For the latter, Cape Town and Johannesburg are among our top options for local operations due to the location of major customers.

As a whole, the African continent is of great interest to Logmore. I believe the company could make a very real and tangible difference by working with the local pharmaceutical supply chains.

Did you know?

DHL has chosen to secure more than 7mn doses of COVID-19 vaccines with Logmore. The agreement between DHL and Logmore commenced in March 2021 and involves the monitoring of vaccine temperatures in Europe. As a shipment data platform, Logmore integrates seamlessly with the DHL SmartSensor service. The service package cares for shipment conditions every step of the way and provides fleet management teams access to analytics. At the same time, end users and employees are able to verify the correct handling of the shipment at package-level, throughout its journey.

Logmore –www.logmore.com