Crossing mountains to make healthcare accessible with PodTech™

Julia Paredes López grew up in Cerro Colorado, Chihuahua, Mexico, an area where access to medical care was limited. At the age of 17, she witnessed pain, disease and death all around her as a measles outbreak claimed precious lives – all because of a lack of vaccines.

At the age of 50, López is the state supervisor of the Universal Vaccine Programme in Chihuahua, Mexico. Throughout her career as a nurse, she has worked to bring essential vaccines to Mexicans, especially those who live in the most remote communities and don’t have access to any other means of medical care.

Either on foot or on horseback, López spent years travelling across towns and villages, across dry deserts and rocky mountains, across cultural and linguistic barriers, to ensure that children – regardless of their location – receive vital vaccines to safeguard their health. Over her 30 years as a nurse, López has immunised innumerable children, treated patients attacked by bats, skunks and other animals, assisted in 1,500 births, and been named godmother to 25 children. She has made a tangible difference to vaccine access efforts, particularly against measles, helping the region of the Americas to regain its endemic measles-free status again.

Setting up systems to cross mountains, so people don’t have to.

Julia Paredes López’s story is deeply inspiring. She is one of many health professionals and health access advocates who have gone beyond their call of duty to truly make a difference to the lives of the underserved. While their individual contributions are profoundly valuable, we need transformation at a systemic level to ensure that all people, regardless of location, have access to high-quality healthcare and health products.

PodTech™ is on a mission to overcome geographical challenges to accessing quality healthcare. Our podule™ technology offers a cost-effective end-to-end solution for rapid biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing. Our expertise in biopharma capacity building can help remedy the unacceptable health equity imbalance around the world.

The technology.

Our cleanroom modules, which we refer to as podules™, are prefabricated units encased within shipping containers. These podules™ are manufactured entirely at our factory in the UAE. Shipped to and assembled at your site, our systems are fast, flexible and scalable for almost all your biopharma needs. They are as robust as your traditional factories, capable of being operated all day, every day, through the year, with a 20-year operational life.

These podules™ are relatively easy to deploy even at remote locations because they are self-contained and don’t rely much on local infrastructure. Each podule™ comes equipped with a dedicated building management system (BMS), air handling, fire protection, and electrical and process utility distribution. At your factory site, the podule™ has to simply be connected to basic utilities and electricity to be ready for operations. Our systems are ideal for biopharma manufacturing, fill and finish, inhalation, onco and novel products.

This technology is common in the West. It is accepted and approved by the US FDA, MHRA UK, and the EU GMP. We also guarantee system integrity through the pre-validation of our podules™ before they are shipped to you.

Climate resilience and weather proof design.

Julia Paredes López had to overcome several geographical and climatic hurdles to reach children who needed to be immunised. These challenges also come in the way of governments and other health authorities and organisations in their endeavour to effectively distribute and deliver health services. These include long distances, diverse and difficult topographies like deserts and mountains, and harsh climatic conditions which are only getting worse with climate change.

Difficult natural conditions like these have historically made it very difficult for governments and health sector organisations to serve populations who live in such regions. But PodTech™’s offerings account for many of these difficulties, providing solutions for some of the harshest environments. All our podules™ are weather proof, double insulated, and seismically designed steel structures. Their robust design and construction make them resilient in the face of natural disasters and harsh weather, providing a robustness that is unparalleled by traditionally built structures.

Adaptability, resource efficiency, and recyclability.

One of the greatest benefits of PodTech™’s podules™ for regions like Chihuahua, Mexico is that due to their modular, self-contained nature, the podules™ can be easily installed even without much support from local infrastructure. This means that medicines, vaccines and diagnostics can be made when and where they are needed.

Certainly, our prefabricated pharma factory systems can produce the drugs and vaccines that local populations need. More critically, they leave a minimal impact on the local environment. They enable shorter supply chains which result in lower carbon footprints. By scaling production up or down to respond to regional demand, our modular facilities help drugmakers to effectively match supply to demand, preventing overproduction and wastage. With their state-of-the-art design, our modular factory systems enable better control of energy use and emissions, leading to a reduction in energy consumption during the construction and operation phases.

Rare in the biopharma capacity building world, prefabricated factory systems are also recyclable. Advances in prefab technology available to us today mean that our factories can be constructed using recycled or environmentally friendly materials. This translates to minimal construction waste. Additionally, at the end of a prefab factory’s lifespan or when it is no longer needed, it can be dismantled and repurposed with ease – no explosive-based demolition, no pollution, no risks.

The story of Julia Paredes López is inspiring. Leaders like her have transformed the lives of many around the world. Her story should be motivating not only to other healthcare professionals but also other stakeholders in the health sector.

Governments should be motivated to better support exceptional individuals like López to serve people from underserved communities. Enterprising entrepreneurs should be motivated to invest in building biopharma capacity in remote regions so that no health service provider has to traverse these paths alone.

PodTech™, too, is motivated. To make biopharma capacity building as simple as possible. To build factories in regions where people think it impossible. To make LMICs pharmaceutically self-sufficient. To make people the world over healthier and happier. To support the López’s of the world and make their jobs easier.

We hope you will join us in our mission.