Hi there,

With the great news about a Covid vaccine coming from BioNTech and Pfizer earlier this week, the challenge of administering the inoculation program has now come into focus. 

Why? The vaccine needs to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F), which creates clear logistical challenges. 

And this is where cold chain technologies come into play. 

We covered what cold chains are in  this client research brief, but at a high level, the pharma cold chain refers to the supply network of refrigerated trucks, planes, labs, and storage facilities that enables the secure and safe delivery of drugs. Cold chain management in medicine saves drug companies, hospitals, pharmacies, and labs millions by preventing lost product and regulatory penalties.  

There has been increased investment into the cold chain globally of late, but as  this search for cold chain on CB Insights shows, a lot of it is focused on the transport of fruits, vegetables, and meat, which makes sense given the on-demand delivery boom we’re seeing globally. Much of the investment is also happening in Asia with India and China, in particular, seeing a lot of activity.

Overall, there has been relatively less investment or M&A — whether driven by private equity, VC, or otherwise — in the pharmaceutical cold chain. The CB Insights Industry Analyst Consensus  market size estimate below for the global cold chain offers an easy way to see how huge this market is. With the current and ongoing needs for cold chain logistics, we expect investment and M&A activity to intensify in the coming quarters and years.

Note: The industry analyst consensus is an aggregation of industry analyst estimates. It is akin to the Wall Street analyst earnings consensus for company earnings, but applied to market sizings. More on using the wisdom of an expert crowd here.

I forgot that you existed

As students adjust to virtual/hybrid classes, higher education has radically shifted in the wake of Covid-19.

Some startups and companies are unbundling Harvard, and the elite college experience, by replacing the critical functions universities once served. Read more here.

I knew you were trouble
 

From Revolut to Chime, challenger banks are steadily chipping away at incumbents’ share of the banking space. 

We dig into the $550B race for digital banking in this client-only report. We'll also be walking through the state of the market in this upcoming webinar.

Come back...be here

The Future of Fintech is 5 days away.
 

Networking is well underway, with hundreds of 1:1 video meetings already booked, since we've opened up networking slots for the entire week of the conference. Plus, we’re providing all attendees with a list of companies attending to make the discovery process even easier.

But that’s just the icing on the cake. 🍰

We recently added titles for all of our speaker sessions. Check out the full agenda here, which includes presentations like Wealthfront wants to be the Tesla of investing and Why Citigroup's teaming up with tech giants.

Speak now
 

Execs are chattering about point-of-care testing thanks to Covid-19.

Earnings calls mentions have jumped 3.5x in Q3’20 YoY. Here's what clients need to know.

Business Insider. Blake Dodge (@dodgeblake) quotes CB Insights senior director of research Marc Albanese (@marcjalbanese) and references CB Insights research in looking at Amazon’s healthcare strategy.

WIRED. Tom Simonite (@tsimonite) covers the US government’s backing of 2 AI programs and cites CB Insights data.

Bloomberg. Bloomberg News reports on ByteDance’s funding talks and cites CB Insights unicorn data.
 

P.S. Interested in covering everything from hospital innovation to wearables to digital therapeutics? We're hiring for a healthcare intelligence analyst.

Rich reading. Rare books, especially those related to science and math, have seen strong sales amid the pandemic.

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Hyperspeed (almost). The first human trial of hyperloop tech safely transported 2 volunteers and their pod on a test track in Nevada.

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Mine blown. Scientists on the ISS have found bacteria that could be used to mine valuable metals and minerals from rocks in space.

MIT Technology Review

Just for you. Targeted ads may soon become commonplace on network TV, as Nielsen announced it would begin calculating viewership of individual ads.

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Deepfake music. Companies like Google and Spotify are deploying AI to compose new songs for artists like Frank Sinatra.

The Guardian