When perfection is the baseline

His latest project exemplifies this. A pharmaceutical company needed to transport fresh CAR-T therapies across the Pacific for a clinical trial in Japan. No cryopreservation. 36-hour maximum window for the return leg. Patient cells that couldn't be replaced if something went wrong.

"Trans-Pacific fresh transport is challenging because traditionally, you wouldn't attempt it over that distance," Aitken explains. "But cell and gene therapy is a pioneering field. We're always ready to solve problems that haven't been solved before."

That pioneering spirit extends beyond individual shipments. By setting up clinical trials for success, Michael and World Courier help build the foundation that pharmaceutical companies need to bring these therapies to market. Today's flawless mock shipment could be tomorrow's commercial therapy reaching thousands of patients.

Planning for every scenario

When you are transporting irreplaceable patient cells with a 36-hour window and no margin for error, there's no room for "we'll figure it out." Every hour is mapped. Every backup airport is identified. Every contingency has a contingency.

"You need to have Plan A, but you also need to have Plan A1, Plan A2, Plan B, C and so on," Aitken explains. "Sometimes you need multiple options so that if something happens during the transport route, you can make that adjustment."

This is not hypothetical planning. When recent U.S. government shutdowns threatened to disrupt air traffic during mock shipments for the Japan trial, Michael had already identified backup airports in Los Angeles and San Diego. If Californian airspace closed entirely? They had mapped out a 15-hour drive to Seattle.

The weight of irreplaceable cargo

Managing cell and gene therapy logistics means living with a unique pressure. The box your courier is carrying might contain fresh cells drawn from a critically ill patient who has run out of other options. Or it might contain a finished therapy worth millions of dollars that can only with great difficulty and cost be reproduced if something goes wrong.

"You've got to try and take some of your personal feelings out of it, because what you've really got to focus on is the time and the temperature," Michael says. "If you get too attached to the details about what the product is for, or who the patient is, you might start making emotional decisions. You've got to think about what is most effective for the product and what is the best solution for the client."

But that clinical focus does not mean detachment. The awareness of what is at stake is always top of mind.

"The one thing you want is to get the product to the patient," he says. "Fortunately, with a lot of these products, they are so unique and critical to patient outcomes that the customer give us the freedom to have proper risk prevention strategies. They allow the budgets, they allow us to charter where needed, to perform hand carries where needed. When all that comes together, it is incredibly rewarding."

When success stories come through

Michael and his team rarely meet the patients whose treatments they transport. Most of the time, success is measured in temperature logs, on-time deliveries, and the absence of complications.

But occasionally, clients share success stories. Often anonymized, sometimes just a brief update that a treatment worked, that a patient got their chance.

"We love it when our clients send us these stories through, because you can remember that specific shipment," Michael says. "Especially with low-volume, high-value treatments. If someone asked me about a treatment we delivered to Rome, that might have been one of only three or four we'd done there that year. So yes, I remember it. Even though we never meet the patient personally, we've invested so much time and energy into making sure that shipment succeeds. That investment resonates across the whole team."

No two days the same

The complexity is what drives him. Cell and gene therapy logistics means every project brings fresh challenge. Be it different timelines, different regulations, or different risk profiles.

"It's a privilege to be able to work with these clients on such unique propositions, such life-changing products," Michael reflects. "It can be challenging day to day, but it does mean that no two things are ever really the same. Every day you get a new challenge; every day you've got something to think about."

The client expectation is perfection every time. And for Michael, that is exactly as it should be.

For a field as pioneering as cell and gene therapies, being ready for the next fresh challenge is not just part of the job. It is what makes the work meaningful and ultimately helps deliver healthier futures to patients.