"Song Of Ice And Fire" In Cold Chain Transportation System Of New Crown Vaccine

With the emergency launch of new crown vaccine in many cities in China, vaccine cold chain logistics concept stocks rose sharply.

On December 4, according to Wang Junzhi, deputy leader of the vaccine research and development team of the scientific research group and academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering at the Eighth World Conference on Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western medicine, 600 million inactivated vaccines will be approved for marketing in China within the year. For cold chain logistics companies, 600 million new crown vaccines undoubtedly mean a large number of freezer and refrigerator orders and the improvement of fourth quarter performance. For the capital market, a large number of new crown vaccines will be launched soon, which means that we can tell a good story in this industry chain. As an important part of vaccination, whether the cold chain transportation is qualified or not determines whether the vaccine can be used for the final vaccination.

According to the global times, nine districts in Bavaria, Germany, had to suspend the new cap vaccination program on December 27 due to concerns that Pfizer would not maintain strict cold chain conditions during the delivery of the vaccine. In this regard, the person in charge of the region where the problem occurred said, "personnel safety is the first priority, and 100% of the vaccine must be guaranteed to be safe for use. If there is only the slightest indication that the vaccine cannot meet the 100% quality standard, the vaccine will not be vaccinated. "

The cold chain transportation and storage process should not have any mishaps, because this will be a fatal blow to the safety and effectiveness of the new crown vaccine. If the vaccine does not reach the preset standard temperature during cold chain transportation, the stability of the protein that can trigger immune response will be affected. In other words, the vaccine has no immune effect. In addition, once the vaccine is thawed, the vaccination must be completed within a few days, which actually requires the terminal medical institutions. At the same time, vaccine cold chain transportation is also a huge pressure and challenge for the relevant enterprises in the industrial chain. Temperature control is not only the most difficult problem to overcome, but also the core competitiveness.

However, it is undeniable that due to the large demand and high production of vaccines, the cold chain transportation industry chain actually has huge business opportunities, and the market space behind it is estimated to be as high as 10 billion.

Pull vaccine cold chain transport concept stocks up

According to CCTV on December 9, cold chain logistics has become a new problem in vaccine storage, distribution and vaccination because Pfizer and other new crown vaccines need to be stored at extremely low temperature. A large amount of dry ice is needed for the transportation of large doses of vaccine, and the demand for dry ice is also increasing. At present, the price of dry ice transportation in some areas has risen to 20 times of the normal price.

Pfizer's vaccine is required to be kept at minus 70 degrees. Some dry ice manufacturers said that since November, when Pfizer's vaccine came out with significant benefits, they had received production demand and began to purchase more machines to catch up.

Recently, according to the white paper published by DHL and McKinsey, the global demand for vaccines is expected to exceed 10 billion doses. The vaccine market space is huge, and it also promotes the upgrading and development of upstream and downstream industries.

Domestic cold chain transportation concept stocks are paid close attention to and sought after by the capital market, including ice wheel environment, Fosun Pharmaceutical, Aucma, Intel group, Haier biology, Changhong Meiling, snowman shares, CIMC group, etc., and some cold chain concept stocks have realized continuous trading limits. It is reported that Intel group, a pharmaceutical distribution enterprise with the concept of vaccine and cold chain, has harvested at least 10 trading limits in the past year. In addition, Fosun has started to order capacity from air cargo service providers, and plans to ship the new crown vaccine produced by biontech's German factory to China from January next year.

According to the data released by the cold chain Committee of CWTC, from 2017 to 2019, the scale of China's cold chain logistics market continued to expand, with an average annual compound growth rate of 15.3%. In 2019, the market scale of cold chain logistics industry reached 339.1 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 17.5%. In addition, according to the data of meinei.com, the sales volume of drugs requiring cold chain transportation in China will be about 110 billion yuan in 2018. Among them, vaccine accounted for the largest proportion of 43%. Guorong Securities pointed out that after the success of vaccine research and development, the new volume of cold chain transportation market will be more than 7.2 times. In addition, there will be a huge overseas market. The global demand for cold chain transportation will be huge, and relevant vaccine cold chain enterprises will usher in opportunities.

It is understood that cold chain logistics refers to a systematic project in which goods are always in the best low-temperature environment specified by the product in the process of production, storage, transportation and sales until consumption, so as to ensure product quality and reduce product loss.

The target products of cold chain logistics include agricultural products, poultry, aquatic products and other general products, as well as special products such as drugs (vaccines, blood), chemicals and so on. Special products have higher requirements for cold chain logistics, and there are certain thresholds. According to WHO estimates, 50% of vaccines are wasted every year due to cold chain problems.

For the smooth transportation of the new crown vaccine, from the aviation logistics company to the airport freight station, etc., we have made great efforts. According to reports, seven companies in the Hong Kong International Airport hold IATA ceiv Pharma, and have 30 refrigerated vehicles and a 5000 square foot freezer. The minimum temperature of the freezer is - 25 ℃, and there are two tarmac covers to store vaccines and medicines that cannot be delivered immediately.

In addition, the cargo terminal of Shanghai Pudong International Airport has three different temperature control areas, which are 2 ℃ ~ 8 ℃, 15 ℃ ~ 25 ℃ and - 20 ℃~

-At 12 ℃, it can meet the temperature control transportation demand of most vaccines; Shenzhen airport has obtained the drug certification of independent pharmaceutical logistics verification center issued by IATA, which is about to build a 350 square meter special cold storage for drugs, equipped with cold chain barge trucks, according to the certification standards.

However, after the outbreak, whether there is still a broad market demand for the ultra-low temperature cold chain like - 70 ℃ needs to be verified by time. However, there is no doubt that the cold chain transportation chain of biomedicine will undergo great changes and upgrading.

Reconstruction of cold chain transport system by mRNA vaccine?

Generally speaking, the standard temperature of vaccine cold chain transportation is 2 ℃ ~ 8 ℃, such as inactivated vaccine, adenovirus vector vaccine, recombinant protein vaccine, including rabies vaccine, hand foot mouth vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine, etc.

However, the emergence of mRNA vaccine has put forward more stringent requirements for the temperature of cold chain transportation. Previously, Pfizer disclosed that the temperature required for cold chain transportation of mRNA vaccine developed in cooperation with biontech is - 70 ℃ ~ - 10 ℃, which is far lower than the standard temperature in the process of cold chain transportation of most vaccines.

It is reported that Pfizer's vaccine can be stored for six months in a - 70 ℃ ultra-low temperature freezer, 15 days in a specially insulated transport box with dry ice, and only five days in a hospital's 2 ℃ ~ 8 ℃ refrigerator. In addition, the mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna is required to be transported at - 20 ℃, while the two new inactivated coronal vaccines currently in urgent use in China only need to be transported at the standard temperature of 2 ℃ ~ 8 ℃.

The temperature requirements of vaccine cold chain transportation in different technical routes are different, which is determined by the characteristics of vaccine itself. "The case that mRNA vaccine has not been inoculated in humans before also determines its limitations. The previous cold chain technology is mostly designed according to the demand of service inactivated vaccine. Whether to re-establish cold chain technology around mRNA vaccine may be a subversive decision for the whole vaccine industry." A vaccine industry personage in South China said to the reporter of the 21st century economic report.

MRNA is essentially a nucleic acid molecule carrying genetic information, which is involved in the intermediate steps of DNA transcription and protein production. The preparation principle of mRNA vaccine is to deliver the mRNA carrying the genetic information of viral characteristic protein into cells and express it in vivo, so as to activate immune response and produce effective antibody. This technology has the advantage of short development cycle, but its stability is relatively poor in standard low-temperature environment, so it needs ultra-low temperature conditions to maintain.

To be sure, the current ultra-low temperature cold chain transportation foundation needs to be improved. The temperature of - 70 ℃ promotes the cold chain transportation to change slowly, including transportation mode, cold chain packaging, use of dry ice, cold storage storage at the terminal, etc., which also means that the cost of cold chain transportation is greatly increased compared with before.

Air transportation is the main transportation mode of vaccines, but it is not easy to transport vaccines in large quantities. The International Aviation Association (IATA) estimates that about 8000 Boeing 747 freighters will be needed to transport vaccines in the next 18-24 months, but only about 2000 freighters are available, and most of them are not Boeing 747 aircraft. This means that most vaccines need to be transported by airliner, but most of them are suspended due to the epidemic.

What's more, it's very difficult for transporters to reach - 70 ℃. For this reason, Pfizer specially designed a dry ice frozen transport box for the new crown vaccine, which is called "pizza box". Each pizza box contains 975 vaccines, one of which can be diluted to 5 doses, that is, a box of 4875 doses of vaccine.

However, dry ice is also unstable and limited in air transportation. Dry ice has been listed as dangerous goods by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the U.S. Department of transportation, because dry ice will sublimate into the form of gas during decomposition, which may replace the oxygen in the cabin in case of poor ventilation. However, in order to ensure the vaccine supply, the FAA has appropriately relaxed the air transportation restrictions on dry ice.

In response, who logistics officials said that some airlines were seeking to transport dry ice and other medical supplies at "outrageous" ultra-high prices before the festival, but it is expected that the capacity compression will ease by 2021.

In addition to the transportation process, the cold storage of the terminal, as the last step of vaccination, also faces unprecedented challenges, even the biggest challenge.

The industry insiders told the 21st century economic reporter that long-distance cross ocean transportation needs a great deal of cooling power to meet the low-temperature demand of the cold chain, while the terminal transportation needs more scattered equipment and is more difficult.

On December 19, Cui Gang, head of the disease control bureau of the National Health Commission, publicly said that under normal circumstances, vaccination units are located in health service centers, township hospitals or general hospitals.

It is understood that according to the current situation, the terminal inoculation units often do not break through the ultra-low temperature storage equipment and conditions under the previous 2-8 degree storage conditions, and it is unlikely to improve the refrigeration equipment in a short time. But the inactivated vaccine developed in China does not have such "worries".

As a matter of fact, foreign countries are also making breakthroughs in the layout of terminal reception of vaccines required by ultra-low temperature. Germany and other European and American countries have adopted the mode of establishing immune centers, such as opening underground space of hospitals, placing low-temperature refrigerators for storage, or making use of exhibition places with huge space to set up a lot of small spaces after setting up cold storage. It is understood that in the United States, due to the special nature of this mRNA vaccine, the vaccination sites are still mainly in large hospitals, with few community hospitals.

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