Frontier Scientific Solutions, a contract service organization (CSO), and Air Transport Services Group, a provider of aircraft leasing and air cargo transport services, are partnering up to bolster the delivery process surrounding temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals.¹

Given their industry experience, the involved parties are expected to provide a logistics network that’s able to tackle the various operational, regulatory, and security requirements surrounding the biotech, medical device, and pharma sectors.

Expanding global life sciences infrastructure

This collaboration expands on Frontier’s current $1.5 billion investment from GID, which is aimed at advancing infrastructure development and network growth in order to create a high-integrity logistics platform that supports leading life science markets around the globe.

“The launch of our air network represents a major milestone in enhancing connected global infrastructure for life sciences,” said Steve Uebele, CEO of Frontier. “By linking Europe and the United States with additional strategic hubs under development, we are creating a logistics backbone that minimizes handoffs, maintains temperature control, and delivers total visibility and compliance across every stage of the journey.”

Strengthening the pharma cold chain

Essentially, note the involved parties, the strategic partnership establishes a lineup of temperature-controlled aircraft tracks that’ll exponentially bolster the cold chain logistics sector.

“This partnership reflects how ATSG leverages its air cargo expertise to deliver exceptional value to our partners,” commented Greg Mays, president of ATSG. “Transforming how an industry moves and protects critical products is at the heart of what we do. By applying more than 40 years of experience and leadership in time-sensitive networks, we’ve created a dedicated solution designed to meet the complex, highly regulated demands of the life sciences sector.”

Reducing supply chain complexity

Being able to succeed in this market is highly dependent on the proper operational model. Given the number of stakeholders in the pharma supply chain, the CSO’s operational model is designed to decrease the number of handoffs—sometimes as many as 20—to less than four.

Proximity to customer bases is also essential. Frontier has a Wilmington, NC location that services as its North American HQ, while its Shannon, Ireland hub handles operations across various regions, including Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Plans for new locations continue to be in the works through next year, in order to better serve the plethora of with additional life science manufacturing and distribution markets across the globe.

Being marketed as an “air network,” it is expected to result in more efficient routes, supplementing the rise in demand for biologics, and GLP-1 therapies, along with other meds that rely on specific temperature storage.

Addressing direct-to-patient delivery challenges

Along the lines of medications that required strict temperature monitoring to ensure efficacy, the challenge of limiting temperature excursions becomes more apparent in direct-to-patient delivery models, as they encounter packaging, tracking, and patient touchpoints. Being able to property prepare for these extra variables is key.

“In quality, we talk about building that into your process,” said Nancy Fingerhut, vice president of quality assurance and regulatory affairs with Revelation Pharma, a company that represents a national network of 503A and 503B compounding pharmacies.² “You have to mitigate those risks in the not only designing the package and the validation, but also managing the service providers to the end patient, ensuring that you have to guarantee, in the validation, that your threats can be received in control in that period of time.

“The risk is the service providers that are socially executing on that service and then managing any exception or deviation—while being that educator from the pharmacy and clinical patient relationship standpoint. Is the product acceptable for use? I think there's a pretty significant component in the shift to endpoint and patient education on receiving and knowing if the product is acceptable for use. It's sort of like a guarantee that as it's received, it's safe and effective for the patient.”

References

1. Frontier Scientific Solutions and Air Transport Services Group Announce Strategic Partnership to Launch Dedicated Air Services for Life Sciences. Business Wire. October 15, 2025. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251015584501/en/Frontier-Scientific-Solutions-and-Air-Transport-Services-Group-Announce-Strategic-Partnership-to-Launch-Dedicated-Air-Services-for-Life-Sciences

2. Saraceno N. LogiPharma USA 2025: How Pharma Leaders Are Tackling Temperature Monitoring in Direct-to-Patient Shipments. Pharmaceutical Commerce. October 2, 2025. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://www.pharmaceuticalcommerce.com/view/how-pharma-leaders-tackling-temp-monitoring-direct-to-patient-shipments