Part One
The Problem
Despite investment in infrastructure - Risks have increased.
Over the past decade, pharmaceutical cold chain logistics has benefited from sustained investment. Infrastructure has expanded. Temperature-control technologies have improved.
Monitoring systems have become more sophisticated and widely adopted. Dedicated pharma corridors and specialised handling facilities are now far more common than they were fifteen years ago.
Yet the data in this study suggests investment alone has not eliminated structural vulnerability. When asked whether risks of product loss, theft or temperature excursions have increased in the current VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) environment, an overwhelming majority of respondents said yes, while only 8% reported no increase.
This near consensus indicates that volatility is not a marginal issue - it is systemic.
At the same time, improvements in quality and reliability appear limited rather than transformative.
When asked how outcomes have changed over the past 10–15 years, 61% of pharmaceutical respondents said there had been some, but limited, improvement.
Freight forwarders were slightly more optimistic, with 35% reporting clear improvement, yet even within this group the most common response (45%) remained “some, but limited.”
Notably, no respondent suggested that outcomes have become more difficult to manage overall, indicating that investment has delivered stability, if not breakthrough performance gains.
The result is a subtle but significant gap. Infrastructure and technology have advanced, yet risk exposure remains elevated and reliability gains are seen to be modest. The industry has improved its tools, but the operating environment has grown even more complex in parallel.
Understanding why requires a closer examination of where risk concentrates, what drives cost escalation, and how execution constraints shape real-world performance.
Q: Despite increased investment in temperature-controlled supply chains, how have quality and reliability outcomes changed over the past 10-15 years?
“Significant investment has mitigated many risks, but systemic vulnerabilities remain. Pharmaceutical supply chains are more controlled than ever, yet still fragile and expensive to manage. Improvements in quality and reliability have been incremental rather than transformative. Fundamental limitations persist — particularly around cost, infrastructure gaps, fragmented data, inconsistent partner capabilities, and limited true end-to-end visibility. As a result, cold chain design remains driven more by risk avoidance than optimisation, constraining flexibility, multimodal options, and scalability.”
Lou Lozano Senior Director, Head of Supply Chain Center of Excellence Biocon Biologics
Q: Despite increased investment in temperature-controlled supply chains, how have quality and reliability outcomes changed over the past 10-15 years?
“Significant investment has mitigated many risks, but systemic vulnerabilities remain. Pharmaceutical supply chains are more controlled than ever, yet still fragile and expensive to manage. Improvements in quality and reliability have been incremental rather than transformative. Fundamental limitations persist — particularly around cost, infrastructure gaps, fragmented data, inconsistent partner capabilities, and limited true end-to-end visibility. As a result, cold chain design remains driven more by risk avoidance than optimisation, constraining flexibility, multimodal options, and scalability.”
Lou Lozano Senior Director, Head of Supply Chain Center of Excellence Biocon Biologics
