UPS, FedEx and logistics giants are investing in the healthcare boom
A FedEx employee walks past his truck in the North Beach neighborhood in San Francisco, California, on June 23, 2026.
Heather Diehl | Getty Images
As demand for specialty drugs such as GLP-1s increases, logistics companies, including POWER SUPPLY And FedEx they are adapting their strategies to better transport and store these drugs.
Including injectable GLP-1 drugs Novo NordiskOzempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly‘s Mounjaro and Zepbound require refrigerated storage for shipping.
The Covid pandemic brought healthcare logistics to the forefront in 2020, as shipping temperature-controlled vaccines quickly became an essential part of keeping the virus at bay. As more money is poured into new pharmaceutical innovations, the transportation of these products has also come under the spotlight.
Logistics companies are now investing millions of dollars and retrofitting dozens of temperature-controlled facilities to enter the market.
In June, UPS announced a new $48 million investment in temperature-controlled facilities as it saw increased demand for critical operations. Accordingly Growing Market ReportsDemand for temperature-sensitive biological products is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.3% by 2033, reaching a market value of approximately $39.1 billion.
Meanwhile, the popularity of obesity and diabetes medications is rapidly increasing. A. July Gallup poll It found that 11 percent of Americans will use GLP-1 drugs for weight loss purposes in 2026, up from just 3 percent in 2024.
However, if they are not stored and shipped at the correct temperature, they run the risk of losing their effectiveness.
Food and Drug Administration warned It warns that improper storage during shipping can affect the quality of the drug and advises patients not to use GLP-1 drugs that arrive “warm or with inadequate refrigeration.”
Other biologics, such as some vaccines, insulin, and antibiotics, also require special transportation to maintain effectiveness. For logistics companies, this means ensuring proper storage and movement every step of the way.
Volume creation
Healthcare logistics has proven to be one of UPS’s biggest opportunities. During an earnings call with analysts in April, CEO Carol Tomé said the company’s global healthcare portfolio has gained market share every year since 2021, achieving its first quarter of $3 billion in healthcare revenue in the first quarter of this year.
UPS Healthcare President John Bolla told CNBC that the company is seeing more healthcare companies looking for partners to keep up with volume.
“One of the biggest opportunities we see is supporting the shift toward more specialized treatments and the provision of more care outside of traditional health care settings,” Bolla said.
United Parcel Service trucks are parked at a UPS customer center in Los Angeles on April 1, 2024.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Bolla said UPS is experiencing “rapid growth” in biologics and cell and gene therapies, but the biggest challenge is that the margin of error is small — even a brief deviation from the correct temperature can ruin drugs.
“But that’s also what creates such a significant opportunity in healthcare logistics,” he said. “As treatments become more specialized and supply chains more complex, healthcare companies need partners who can provide not just temperature-controlled storage or transportation, but also end-to-end visibility, control and reliability across the entire network.”
FedEx is also benefiting from this trend, initialization a life sciences organization earlier this month specifically to support the movement of pharmaceuticals and other healthcare products.
FedEx’s Chief Customer Officer Brie Carere told analysts on an earnings call in June that healthcare transportation revenue reached nearly $10 billion in fiscal 2026.
“We build end-to-end solutions focused on global pharmaceutical customers, and the most important thing in global pharmaceuticals is that you realize at the end of every delivery there is a patient or someone waiting to be treated,” said Nick Gennari, FedEx’s president of healthcare. “So we take this very, very seriously.”
When it comes to GLP-1s in particular, Gennari said there is increasing complexity in the distribution of these drugs, from injectables to oral pills to direct-to-consumer forms. But with this complexity comes an “ideally positioned” growth opportunity for FedEx.
Gennari said FedEx has proprietary technology, including a machine learning engine that allows customers to see product movement with predictive capabilities, as well as technology that identifies healthcare products and treats each one differently based on their unique needs.
Gennari also said he was “very pleased” with the company’s core capabilities and expansion plans, including cold chain logistics.
“We already have most of the infrastructure needed to be successful in this space. We have the airline, we have an incredible program, we have the lifting capacity. The network is solidified and works very well,” he said.
Complex supply chains
CH Robinson He told CNBC that his logistics company surpassed $1 billion in revenue in healthcare logistics alone last year, largely driven by growth in GLP-1 drugs while investing in temperature-controlled facilities.
“You really have to have end-to-end connectivity, so you have to build a really nice network and infrastructure to be able to properly serve healthcare customers,” said Ronnie Davis, the company’s vice president of North American ground transportation.
The supply chain for drugs is also becoming more complex, Davis said. In addition to requiring refrigeration, many medications have short shelf lives and must be delivered at precise time intervals.
“There has been a lot of innovation in bringing drugs to market,” Davis said. “I think you’re starting to see this really put stress on the capabilities of the cold chain supply chains in the marketplace. … With the rise of GLP-1s and other specialty drugs, it’s really competitive for the same refrigerated supply sources that are available, and frankly, the supply is constrained, not unlimited.”
Davis said CH Robinson is trying to increase its capabilities, especially to keep up with the high volume. He also added that pharmaceutical companies are also trying to be creative to bring their products to market with a longer shelf life.
According to CEO Hendrik Venter, this innovation also intersects with the growth of artificial intelligence capabilities. DHL Supply Chain. The logistics company uses artificial intelligence to track critical life science products, track temperatures and predict where a problem might occur.
“You’re seeing the industry move away from traditional to biopharmaceuticals,” Venter told CNBC. “You need to have a supply chain that is resilient and able to ship across all these various temperature zones.”
company announced last year It said it plans to invest 2 billion euros ($2.25 billion) in healthcare logistics by 2030, with half of that allocated to the Americas.
Venter said that many pharmaceutical companies have also transferred their storage activities to DHL. The company takes over these facilities, manages them and integrates them into the rest of their network.
DHL has launched a worldwide pharmaceutical air corridor with a dedicated aircraft and connected network that ensures medicines are not shipped through separate regulatory environments.
“You can’t lose a shipment. You can’t replace it. It has to be delivered on time, at the right quality and temperature, every time,” Venter said. “So we continue to selectively look at how to strengthen that network.”
