Regional experts from Marken Philadelphia and New York mobilize cold chain resources to prevent massive loss of clinical trial materials after tornado

Ziel

Provide immediate emergency assistance to rescue large quantities of a client’s temperature-sensitive clinical trial materials inside their warehouse without power in southeast Pennsylvania. 

Herausforderung

Due to a late-night storm, the primary electrical grid in southeast Pennsylvania was disabled, leaving square miles of commercial and residential buildings completely without power. The backup generator for the client's facility failed, and the massive cold storage units inside, holding priceless amounts of samples and other materials at all temperature ranges, were at immediate risk. With each passing minute, the internal temperatures began to threaten the strict thermal thresholds required to maintain their efficacy. The potential loss was not just financial. It represented significant losses to their clinical trial supply chain and samples containing irreplaceable data collected from lengthy trials.

The Marken team needed to work as fast as possible in conjunction with the client to efficiently mitigate the emergency and rescue priceless materials throughout the night and early morning hours. Also, for consideration, dry ice was limited at Marken's Pennsylvania facility, and they needed to coordinate with the team in New York to completely rescue the clients' materials.

Lösung

Immediately when the outage began around 9:30 PM, the head of the client's facility called Marken's Senior Director of Regional Operations for immediate support. The director contacted his local warehouse team of managers and supervisors, and despite the late hour, the team assessed and assembled resources from their Pennsylvania facility to mitigate most of the danger from temperature excursion. Even with short warning and Marken employees' own homes and families affected by the outage emergency, Marken team members responded by supplying the client's facility with active and passive systems of gel packs, pallets, and Credos, as well as bunkers of available dry ice. Due to limited quantities, the Pennsylvania team collaborated with Marken's Senior Director of Regional Operations who contacted Marken's New York team a couple of hours away to bring additional dry ice and packaging, and by 2 AM they arrived at the client's facility with additional resources. 

Ergebnis

The response to the disaster as a rescue mission was a complete success in saving temperature-sensitive materials. Marken's established relationship with the client gave the emergency responders insight to formulate a rapid solution to the client's needs. If not for the quick actions and expertise from Marken's Philadelphia and New York teams, countless clinical trial essentials and research would have been lost. The client's leadership said they were "amazed" by Marken's speed and precision in delivering support.