CONTENTS

1. Executive Summary…………………………………………………………1
2. Introduction………………………………………………………………….2
3. Challenges…………………………………………………………………...4
4. Opportunities………………………………………………………………...7
5. Tools and Techniques………………………………………………………..9
6. Recommendations………………………………………………………….14
7. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….15
8. References………………………………………………………………….16

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Executive Summary

In this paper we present the logistics and supply chain strategies of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer
in regards to the Covid 19 vaccine. Here we discuss about the models and theories and also get
and insight on the trends. We analyse the structure and main processes of supply chain
management and the challenges it carries towards the distribution of Covid 19 vaccines. While in
reality the number of hurdles were numerous, here we take a brief look at some of them. Even
though Pfizer being an established and renowned player in the pharmaceutical sector for
centuries had to face the heat starting from vaccine production till the distribution. Since the
coronavirus was an entirely new breed, it required significant efforts in the formulation and
successful trials of the vaccine in order to roll it out for general public use which would
immunize them to a level that the virus attack would be nil or minimum. Additionally, the
vaccine specific requirements that would help maintain the efficacy and shelf life. Being one of
the first and only to develop the vaccine, Pfizer would require supreme efforts against the
production targets so as to vaccinate as much of the world population. As we discuss the
logistics, it also points out the strengths and weaknesses of the supply chain sector, the
opportunities that arise and the methods that could help mitigate the issues involved within this.
Several tools and techniques are also discussed as we finally take a look at the recommendations.

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Introduction

Pfizer is a Fortune-100 pharmaceutical, animal health, and consumer products manufacturer and
distributor that was founded in 1849 in New York by cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart.
Pfizer Inc. and Warner Lambert Company merged in June 2000 to form the new Pfizer, with
annual sales of $30 billion. (Gupta et al., 2002). One of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals' main corporate
goals is to ensure that no one in the world is denied access to essential and affordable medicines.
Pfizer's internal corporate social responsibility (csr) programmes were private, discretionary, and
limited in scope and impact from 2009 to 2011. When compared to the general corporate policy
of not restricting essential and affordable medicines in order to provide medicines to all. (Givel,
2013). As the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world in 2020, Pfizer overhauled its
supply chain, scaling its manufacturing capabilities in alongside vaccine research to prepare for
superfast vaccine distribution. With a customer base that included the entire world population,
Pfizer had to prepare for the mother of all demand surges as its vaccine development progressed.
(Garand, 2021). After the first COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use, the
vaccine's impact on public health was positive, but it was still early. With two dosage
requirements; if current trends continue, nearly 14 billion shots will be required to vaccinate the
entire world.  This figure does not take into account the need for boosters as a result of the
emergence of viral variants (Bown and Bollyky, 2021)

Instead of developing the new manufacturing process in a traditional, serial manner, all of the
stages were completed simultaneously—process understanding, scaling, design, and fabrication.
Pfizer also simplified the operation, creating a "manufacturing plant in a box" that can be stored
in a rack, rather than designing a traditional large-scale manufacturing operation involving
12,000-liter tanks and large pipes. Pfizer also developed a thermal shipper box that could keep
the product stable for up to ten days and be shipped to remote locations. This box weighs under
50 pounds, is simple to pick and pack, and can be reused. In fact, after shipping more than 1.5
billion doses of the vaccine in less than a year, 75% of the boxes have been returned and can be
used to ship more vaccines. (Paris, 2020). Pfizer is ramping up an ambitious supply chain and
distribution system aimed at delivering hundreds of millions of doses around the world as
quickly as possible as the COVID-19 vaccine nears the end of its R&D phase. The system is

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focused on distribution centres in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Puurs, Belgium, where the
company will load reusable, temperature-controlled containers on a total of two dozen trucks per
day. The company intends to ship 7.6 million doses per day to airports in the area.  Pfizer plans
to buy cargo space on an average of 20 planes per day from FedEx, UPS, and DHL International
to transport vaccine doses to locations as close to vaccination sites as possible, such as major
hospitals or remote medical centres. According to the newspaper, those carriers will also be in
charge of transporting doses from airports to those locations. The company estimates that
deliveries will take three days in total. (Sagonowsky, 2020)

Covid 19 vaccine supply chain representation (Georgiadis and Georgiadis, 2021)

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Challenges

1. Manufacturing Process

Even after authorization, the vaccine's safety, effectiveness, and quality are closely
monitored. Whereas a small-molecule drug's intellectual property may be adequately
captured by a chemical compound alone, vaccine technology is an integral part of the
manufacturing process. From concept to delivery of shots into the public's arms, developing a
new vaccine necessitates five steps and five, largely separable sets of fixed costs. (figure 1)
(Bown and Bollyky, 2021)

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Figure 1 Vaccine manufacturing is a multi-stage process that often requires extensive
collaboration (Bown and Bollyky, 2021)

2. Cold Storage Requirements

The Pfizer vaccination requires storage at -70°C, but few medical facilities have ultra-cold
freezers. Pfizer has designed a thermal shipping box that can be held at ambient temperature for
ten days, but then requires five days of dry ice replenishment. Pfizer must be used within 6 hours
of preparation, leading to wastage and operational challenges (Dai and Song, 2021).

The vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech is delivered in a thermal container with dry ice packaging.
The vaccine can be kept for up to 6 months in an ultra-low freezer at temperatures between -80
and -60 degrees Celsius, or for up to 30 days in a thermal shipping container if proper
precautions are taken. The dry ice in which it is organised must be restocked within 24 hours of
receipt. Refer Table 1 for comparison (Dantuma et al., 2021)

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 3. Transportation and Delivery

Because of the pandemic's urgency, vaccines will most likely be transported by air over longer
distances. While aviation has a good track record when it comes to refrigerated cargo, dealing
with sub zero temperatures is a different story. Dry ice adds a fair bit of weight to a shipment,
increasing the cost and length of time it takes to distribute. What happens between the airport
and the final destination is equally important. The last mile from the airport or local warehouse
to the distribution site is one of the most difficult parts of the logistics chain. Shippers can
achieve positive results as long as additional dry ice is available (Shretta et al., 2021)

4. Cross-Border Guidelines

The Covid-19 economic recovery and state-imposed safety measures have added to importers'
and exporters' current international container shipping challenges, aggravating port congestion
problems and causing global shortage of empty cargo containers to support the global supply
chain. Furthermore, the average holding time from entry in a destination country has increased
by nearly 50%, owing primarily to changes in receiving warehouse procedures in response to the
Covid-19 limitations. The increased volume at the main container ports thus resulted in a
repeated congestion problem (Evans, 2021).

5. Mass Vaccination

It is extremely difficult to implement a vaccination programme across an entire country. The

amount of vaccine that can be produced has no bearing on how quickly it can be deployed. This
includes things like overall process design, storage space, specialised transportation solutions,
and medical supplies. Additionally, the technology for monitoring and managing stock flows and
geographic dispersion, as well as the people and skills needed to administer the vaccine.
(Hazlegreaves, 2021).

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Opportunities

1. Digitalisation

The term Pharma 4.0 has been coined to describe the application of Industry 4.0 principles'
digital strategies and tools to pharmaceutical production and supply chain practices. Industry
4.0/5.0 principles are being used to develop digital tools and collaboration platforms. The term
refers to the digitalization and automating of manufacturing processes, as well as the introduction
of independent, computerised systems. To maintain internal interactions within and across
factories, it employs various types of mathematical models, Artificial Intelligence and the
Internet of Things. The use of Industry 4.0/5.0 principles aims to make data collection,
assessment, and understanding easier, as well as man-machine collaboration, online control and
monitoring, and intra- and inter-facility data sharing. (Sarkis et al., 2021)

2. Drone Delivery

One of the most difficult aspects of delivering the COVID 19 vaccine is reaching indigenous
populations in remote and isolated locations. Another issue with COVID 19 cold chain delivery
is the need for a carrier that can keep the appropriate storage temperature. This study proposes
and evaluates the use of a heavy lift UAV quadcopter to expand the delivery of the COVID 19
vaccine to inhabitants in villages hampered by rugged terrain. A straight line route can be
developed using a drone. Although the required drone delivery time is short, the drones were
constrained by flight operational times. Considering the effectiveness and anticipating vaccine
vaccination, UAV quadcopter drone is a feasible option to support vaccine delivery (Adwibowo,
2021).

3. Research, Development and Distribution

The development of a new vaccine takes time, requires a lot of resources and labour, and is
expensive. A vaccine must first be developed and tested in a laboratory setting before being
approved by the FDA. Phase I clinical trials, which are focused on efficacy and conducted with a
small number of participants (usually 20–100 healthy volunteers), can then be used to evaluate

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the final product. The next step is Phase II clinical trials, in which the primary focus is on safety
and several hundred volunteers may be enrolled. The final phase is Phase III. A vaccine must
prove efficacy once more, but this time on a much larger scale, often involving thousands of
people. Each step is equally important and must be carried out with the utmost precision and
integrity in order to achieve a common goal: the creation of a safe, effective, and easily mass-
produced product to aid in disease mitigation (Burgos et al., 2021).

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Tools And Techniques

1. Decision Support System (DSS)

This system guides daily shipments of critical inventory between plants, distribution centres, and
copackers by using databases, programming languages, spreadsheets, and data inputs from the
firm's ERP. This DSS helped the company better utilise its storage capacity and meet customer
shipping needs across a large network. A well-constructed and well-maintained decision support
system is required to effectively manage a large-scale distribution network. Long-term strategic
decisions, medium-term tactical decisions, and short-term operational decisions should all be
supported by a well-developed DSS (Miller et al., 2013)

Above figure illustrates the methodology (Miller et al., 2013).

2. Blockchain

Due to the growing popularity of blockchain applications and the rising number of vaccine-
related problems, some researchers are considering establishing straightforward data transactions

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in the human medical industry to prevent fake vaccines from entering the supply chain. They
proposed developing a vaccine supply chain system based on blockchain technology to optimise
vaccine safety. (Liu, Tan and Zhao, 2021)
Vaccine distribution is more efficient and transparent with blockchain, which ensures traceability
and a thorough audit of storage and delivery conditions. Data responsibility and original source
tracking in vaccine distribution can be fully automated with blockchain. It’s possible to integrate
various information silos owned and managed by various kinds of stakeholders throughout the
distribution chain. It describes the development of the following novel processes using
blockchain technology features:

• A blockchain-based solution for data irreversibility, openness, and accuracy of vaccination

beneficiary registration to prevent identity theft and impersonation.

• A decentralised smart contracts-based solution for monitoring proper vaccine transportation

situations in a cold chain, as well as real-time peer consciousness of COVID-19 vaccine delivery
and storage conditions.

• A vaccine administration workaround based on intelligent contracts with tamper-proof self-

reporting of health consequences, person identification, and vaccine association. (Antal et al.,
2021)

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Above are all possible with blockchain and immunisation programme management (Antal et al.,
2021)

3. Shipper (Tracing and Tracking)

Pfizer has created breakthrough packaging and storage solutions to satisfy the needs of the many
different locations where the vaccine will be distributed. Engineers designed temperature-
controlled shipping containers (which we refer to as "shippers") that contain GPS temperature-
enabled trackers for constant, real-time location and temperature control and can maintain
required temperature conditions for up to 10 days, when unopened. Pfizer has a control
station monitoring and tracking all shipments 24/7 to ensure that each shipment arrives on time
and at the correct temperature. If the units are re-iced every five days, the shippers can be used
for temporary holding for up to 30 days once opened, essentially making them momentary deep
freezers. Additionally, once out of the shippers, vials containing our vaccine can be stored at
refrigerator temperatures (2-8 degrees Celsius / 35-46 degrees Fahrenheit) for five days. These
specialised thermal shippers are about the size of a carry-on suitcase and, like a suitcase, can be
easily transported internationally (Pfizer.com).

4. Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP)

To optimize decisions regarding the transferred quantities between locations, the inventory

profiles of central hubs and vaccination centres, and the daily vaccination plans in the supply
chain network's vaccination centres, a new mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is
developed. The model's goal is to reduce total costs, which include storage and transportation
costs, costs associated with fleet and staffing requirements, and indirect costs imposed by
wastages. A two-step decomposition strategy based on a divide-and-conquer and an aggregation
approach is proposed. Finally, to deal with potential disruptions in the vaccination plans, a
rolling horizon technique is used. The proposed mathematical framework aids decision-making
in COVID-19 vaccine supply chains, lowering underlying costs and minimizing wastage. As a
result, the distribution network efficiency has improved (Georgiadis and Georgiadis, 2021)

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 5. Just In Time (JIT)

JIT supply chains are the epitome of lean and highly coordinated production. Suppliers and
customers along the value chain coordinate in such a way that any finished intermediate or final
goods are immediately collected and processed further, rather than put on stock (Pisch, 2020).
Supply chains that operate at the highest levels of precision are essential for just-in-time
manufacturing. Materials arrive on-site just before production begins, allowing production to
stay lean and squeeze the most out of available space while leaving little lag period or margin for
error. This paradigm puts pressure on every component of the supply chain, from shipping
vessels to material handling equipment, to keep its end of the bargain (Hyster, 2021). Pfizer has
created detailed logistical plans and tools to ensure that vaccines are transported, stored, and
monitored at all times. The distribution system is based on a flexible just-in-time system that will
deliver frozen vials to the vaccination site (Pfizer.com)

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Recommendations

Pfizer is investing in supply chain digitization, but they must go beyond what is almost a
requirement to stay ahead of the competition. Pfizer should concentrate on how to expand their
cloud-based, integrated supply chain information management system to emerging markets,
where paper trails and unpredictable internet are still common. Pfizer can also use their more
digitised supply chain to collect real-time data from patients via various consumer technologies
(fitness trackers, smartphones, etc.) for care analytics and optimise treatments. Pfizer needs to
invest in future technology, such as drones for same-day delivery, to resolve the conflict between
the need for speed of delivery and rising storage costs. (Lu, 2017)

Following are some best practices for developing a logistics contingency plan that will guide the
company through any supply chain disruptions (Krug, 2020):
Be flexible Plan for what you can, stay informed about factors that may alter your plans, and
incorporate flexibility into processes.
Focus on supply chain visibility Due to a lack of visibility, weak spots in supply chain go
unattended, leaving the system vulnerable to unforeseen events. Supply chain visibility methods
are a useful resource for monitoring global supply chain so as to be aware of potential
disruptions well before they occur.
Develop a strategy for emergency shipments. Emergency shipments become a
primary concern in disruption situations. Prior to evaluating carriers, carefully consider
the transportation needs to ensure that they can meet mission-critical requirements and
maintain the delivery of resources, even in an emergency.
Create multiple contingency plans. Only multiple logistics contingency plans are
better than a single logistics contingency plan. Prepare plans A, B, C, and so on so that
the company is prepared for anything; this will go a long way toward ensuring that the larger
supply chain strategy is as adaptable as it needs to be.

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Conclusion

It takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate vaccination logistics. Each vaccine has unique
shipping, storage, and preparation requirements that must be met to ensure that mass vaccination
campaigns are completed on time and without hiccups. Luckily, pharmacies, with their vast
experience in managing distribution systems, are well positioned to play a key role in
coordination efforts. More COVID-19 vaccines are expected to hit the market in the near future.
Hopefully, vaccine supply will be adequate by then, allowing health-systems to choose which
brand to source in order to better align with their existing medicine management facilities. If this
is not the case, pharmacies must remain flexible in lending their expertise to vaccination
campaigns. (Dantuma et al., 2021). A vaccine is only one part of a successful vaccination,
though an important one. We cannot take logistics for granted when it comes to the start of the
COVID-19 vaccination process. It will take a coordinated effort from an organised lot of supply
chain participants who are all on the same page about the mission and strategy (Cecere, 2020).

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References

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