Jessica Ledesma on Navigating the New Era of Hospital Cold Storage Resilience

The proliferation of biosimilars and high-value specialty medications is altering the risk profile of hospital pharmacy operations, a shift that Jessica Ledesma, Tenutō product manager at Swisslog Healthcare, identifies as a major mark for the industry. As the volume of temperature-sensitive therapies grows, the margin for error in refrigerated medication management has effectively vanished. The reliability of medical refrigeration is a strategic priority for hospital pharmacies, sitting at the intersection of patient safety, financial risk, and regulatory compliance.

For hospital systems, the stakes of a cold chain failure have never been higher. A single excursion in an aging storage unit can lead to the loss of expensive and rare inventory, while simultaneously disrupting critical treatment cycles for patients with complex conditions. This reality is forcing pharmacy leaders to move beyond reactive manual monitoring toward autonomous, data-driven infrastructure that ensures continuity of care in a volatile global supply chain.

In this interview, Ledesma breaks down the evolving landscape of temperature-controlled storage. She discusses the persistent challenge of aging refrigerators, the evolution of cold storage technology, and how drug refrigeration is shifting from a hospital’s facilities team’s responsibility to the pharmacy’s.