Frankfurt Airport is preparing for the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines
Biotech company BioNTech, headquartered in Mainz near Frankfurt, has developed the first mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 and applied for emergency approval at the US FDA some days ago. Another emergency approval by EMA for the EU markets is expected. The drug will get manufactured and distributed in collaboration with US pharma giant Pfizer. Two other vaccines (by Moderna & by AstraZeneca/UniOxford) are close runner-ups to receiving approvals too.
Frankfurt airport will play a key role in delivering the vaccines. Europe's largest pharmaceutical logistic center is based at the airport’s CargoCity and called “Pharma-Hub”. Last year 120.000 tons of pharmaceutical products have been handled by Pharma-Hub. One of its special features are 13.500sqm with temperature dependent control for deep frozen pharmaceuticals. Since the BioNTech vaccine has to be handled at minus 80(!) degree Celsius at any time, a special infrastructure is needed to store and transport hundreds of millions of vaccine vials. Pharma-Hub will be using 20 of these state-of-the-art thermo transporters to carry the vaccine:
Images: Fraport
Pharma-Hub together with Lufthansa Cargo have started their preparations back in August and are currently practicing Covid-19 vaccine supply dry runs. As soon as emergency approval has been admitted they will hit the ground running and operate 24/7.