Onboard Courier w. Cold Chain

A single, GDP-trained Mercury courier accompanies your temperature-sensitive shipment from pickup to final delivery—under the watch of our 24 / 7 control-tower squads.

Cold-Chain

BioPharma

Diagnostic Kits

Zero hand-offs. Zero °C lost. A single, GDP-trained Mercury courier accompanies your temperature-sensitive shipment from pickup to final delivery—under the watch of our 24 / 7 control-tower squads.

Why choose OBC Cold Chain?

Attribute

Standard Parcel<br>(direct FedEx/UPS)

Hybrid Cold Chain

Specialty Cold Chain

OBC Cold Chain (this service)

Pickup

Carrier driver, curbside window

Mercury courier, suite-level pickup

Mercury courier, suite-level pickup

Same courier stays with box

Packaging / replenishment

None

Validated shipper supplied (no in-transit replenishment)

Validated shipper + dry-ice/PCM top-offs at hubs

Validated shipper + courier can top-off during layovers

Transport network

FedEx/UPS ground & sort hubs

FedEx/UPS network

Passenger airline + secure logistics stations

Hand-carry on fastest passenger flights

Handoffs

Multiple sort points & drivers

Courier ➜ FedEx/UPS network

Exactly two couriers (origin & destination)

None—single courier throughout

Customs Pre-Clearance

None

Optional

Included

Included

Risk profile

Moderate

Lower

Very low

Ultra-low

What is an OBC Cold-Chain move?

An onboard-courier (hand-carry) shipment keeps your payload in constant human custody:

  1. Suite-level pickup – Courier arrives with a pre-conditioned, validated shipper, packs or tops up dry ice/PCMs, scans, and seals.

  2. Direct drive to airport – Courier clears security and carries the container in-cabin whenever dimensions allow; otherwise checks it as supervised excess baggage.

  3. Passenger flight – Real-time milestones stream to the Mercury Portal and to our squads.

  4. Last-mile drive – Courier rents a vehicle (or arranges secure ground transfer) and delivers to the exact lab, clinic, or manufacturing suite. Proof of delivery and temperature log are uploaded instantly.

Ideal use cases

  • Cell & gene therapies (CAR-T, AAV, mRNA) with tight viability windows

  • Autologous patient material that must maintain chain of identity

  • Phase-1 clinical-trial doses that cannot be replaced

  • Master cell banks, viral vectors, or other irreplaceable frozen biologics

  • Emergency replacement of temperature-controlled research specimens

Service highlights

  • No hand-offs: one courier, one chain of custody, door-to-door

  • Validated shippers for −80 °C dry-ice, −20 °C PCM, 2–8 °C CRT, or custom profiles

  • Live monitoring in the Mercury Portal with proactive alerts from our 24 / 7 squads

  • Regulatory compliance: GDP, IATA, TSA, DOT; couriers carry letters of authority and dry-ice signage

  • Customs Pre-Clearance: included—permits and paperwork are vetted before wheels-up to avoid border holds

  • Rapid global reach without charter-aircraft costs—access thousands of daily passenger flights

Ready to eliminate every transfer risk?

Book an Onboard Courier – Cold Chain move in the Mercury Portal or call our 24 / 7 team for an instant flight plan.

From our blog

From our blog