Zipline partners with Pfizer to develop cold chain distribution solution for all vaccines

June 11, 2021: Zipline has partnered with Pfizer, to test and develop an end-to-end distribution solution for Covid-19 vaccines. Many Covid-19 vaccines, including the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, require maintaining precise cold chain temperature before being administered to patients. As part of the collaboration, Zipline and Pfizer have partnered to develop a system that can be used to safely distribute any vaccine. 

On June 10, Pfizer and BioNTech announced plans to provide the US government at a not-for-profit price 500 million doses of the companies’ Covid-19 vaccine, 200 million doses in 2021 and 300 million doses in the first half of 2022, to further support the multilateral efforts to address the surge of infection in many parts of the world and to help end the pandemic. The government will, in turn, donate the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses to low- and lower middle-income countries and organisations that support them.

These doses are part of Pfizer and BioNTech’s previously announced pledge to provide two billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to low- and middle-income countries over the next 18 months.

Zipline has successfully distributed tens of thousands of Covid-19 vaccines supplied by the COVAX facility to Ghana since March 2021, and has delivered over 2.5 million routine vaccines since 2019. 

Ghana, the first African to receive vaccines through the COVAX Facility, currently has four Zipline Distribution Centers, with plans to expand to eight this year, ultimately reaching thousands of health facilities serving over 85 percent of the country’s population.

This partnership with Pfizer will build on Zipline’s current capabilities in cold chain and ULT cold chain distribution.