As the pandemic raged in March, some Covid-19 patients in Milan were going into septic shock and their blood pressure was perilously low. A California drug company wanted to ship emergency medication to those patients, but commercial flights to Italy had been drastically scaled back. So it called PCI Pharma Services, a Philadelphia company that specializes in packaging and shipping drugs around the world. It took nearly a week, but PCI secured permits and arranged for courier jets, drivers and trains to deliver the drugs to Milan. As countries prepare to distribute hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccines — some of which require storage as cold as the South Pole in winter and meticulous handling — the highly specialized operations of companies like PCI Pharma are in heavy demand.

Source: New York Times December 15, 2020 19:56 UTC