Yahoo Finance’s Julie Hyman, Brian Sozzi, Myles Udland, and Anjalee Khemlani speak with Trane Technologies CEO & Chairman Mike Lamach about the COVID-19 vaccine cold chain.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: All right. Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live." Myles Udland here in New York.

Well, as the world prepares for the rollout of COVID vaccines across the globe, Trane Technologies is one company involved in helping get these vaccines to where they need to go at the right temperature. And for that-- and for more on this, we're joined now by Mike Lamach. He is the CEO and chairman at Trane Technologies. We're also joined by Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani.

So Mike, let's just begin by, maybe for our viewers who aren't as familiar with you guys, where you sit kind of in this process, and where you are right now in, you know, preparing and, perhaps, already involved in getting these vaccines where they need to go, at the temperature they need to be.

MIKE LAMACH: Sure. Hey, Myles. First of all, thanks for having us here.

Trane Technologies Thermo King business is the business that moves perishables-- so it could be food or vaccines or medicines-- around the world, through cold storage. It was invented 82 years ago by an African-American inventor. And we've been innovating ever since.

And yeah, we're in good shape. We had to really come up with a new product that would be able to get to temperatures at minus 84 to minus 95 degrees Fahrenheit. And that's the point where all organic decomposition stops. And it's the place where you can indefinitely freeze something for the long haul. So this is part of the preparation that we've been making over the past several months.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Mike, Anjalee here. Looking at the needs, we know that Pfizer has a greater need for its vaccine-- in terms of cold storage-- than Moderna. Your experience with food is something that I think has been brought to the fore. Many pointing to the food industry as already existing with cold chain. What is the difference, though, between transporting a vaccine in this temperature, versus food?

MIKE LAMACH: Yeah, it's the quantity, really. You're talking about 12 to 15 billion doses done in an incredibly short time. And where food, at times, and somewhere in the cold chain between harvest and the time that it would be on your dinner table, you can lose 25 or more percent of that food loss. Well, pharmaceuticals would follow the same way. But we've never seen in the world this temperature requirement with this sort of mass distribution in such a short period of time.

So every single dose that can be saved, you could think about that as potentially saving a life. And so this is what's critical about that. And it's every point of contact. It could be via truck, it could be air cargo refrigeration, it could be marine, trailer, small truck for last mile. And we run that whole gambit across that product portfolio.

JULIE HYMAN: Mike, it's Julie here. What about other applications, potentially? You said you guys developed a new product to deal with this particular challenge. Do you see any other potential uses for that product, following the usage for the vaccine?

MIKE LAMACH: Yeah, I think, certainly with food, we actually developed a product about 20 years ago for transporting sushi-grade tuna. And so the product was developed in Asia for-- an air business, manufactured there and used for that purpose. And we adapted it by creating a more insulated container and adapting the refrigeration system to get and stay at these colder temperatures.

It's also important to have the telematics-- the ability to see what's happening in the cold chain. So not just the temperature, but that whole chain of custody, and how the product is actually performing. Anticipate if you're going to lose a unit or product, you can then service it before you would lose the contents of, in this case, the vaccine, which would be critical to maintain.

So it's really that development, over the last few months, that's been the breakthrough for us. And it was the missing part of the cold chain. These mRNA vaccines are really what we're talking about. These are the vaccines that use ultra-cold refrigeration.

And I think we'll see more of these in the future. mRNA is still a relatively new solution. It will be better prepared for further distribution, whether it's a pandemic or any other use it to the future.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Mike, looking at it from the distribution standpoint, specifically, you know, whether it's domestic-- across the US-- or globally. What do you see, in terms of your abilities, is it the ability to transport these globally? And specifically, are you working with Pfizer on this?

MIKE LAMACH: We've worked with every pharmaceutical manufacturer to understand the requirements for temperature and humidity, and how it will be transported and packaged. We've worked with every third-party logistics provider that's in that chain. And we're working with all the states, many countries around the world, to understand their specific plans-- including in the US Operation Warp Speed-- to be able to understand the break points in the cold chain, what possibly could go wrong, and make sure that we've got backups for distribution across that.

So, as an example, in rural areas, or areas where there's not enough infrastructure or power requirements, we're able to put generators, in addition to the shore power requirement, and make sure that we're able to keep these containers refrigerated at ultra-low temperatures indefinitely. And that's important. If you think, in the US, around equitable distribution. Think about Native American tribal land, or out, perhaps, in rural parts of India, or other parts of the world where this is critically important.

So we're looking across that spectrum, and working with a number of centralized government healthcare systems, and have provided super preserves to those countries in advance, as well.

BRIAN SOZZI: Mike, the last time we heard from Trane, about a month and a half ago, you noted on a conference call that business conditions-- you were seeing some improvement in the fourth quarter. Do you continue to see that, even though, really, the global economy has slowed down because the virus has resurged? And then, you have a pretty big investor day coming up on December 14. What's your message going to be to the street?

MIKE LAMACH: Well, the first part of your question is, 20% of our business is moving transport refrigerated goods-- the Thermo King business. The other 80% is the Trane business, and it's largely commercial. So we've been busy with indoor air quality. If you think about the other side of the COVID crisis, it's been around conditioning indoor air, improving the quality of that air, of that environment, making it healthier.

And so the activity on the Trane side, as well as the Thermo King side, has kept us quite busy helping customers with assessments. But what we'll look at on December 14 will be our longer-range plan, how we want it to reinvent Trane technologies. Even though we spun off our industrial business, which is now combined with Gardner Denver to form Ingersoll Rand under a new company, under a combined company, we took the opportunity to think about Trane technologies as being the IPO or the startup. And so we'll talk to investors about our view-- how we clean-sheeted and blueprinted the company from the ground up. And what we think the growth and margin potential could be going forward.

MYLES UDLAND: All right. Mike Lamach is the CEO and chairman at Trane Technologies. Mike, thanks so much for joining the program today. Hopefully we'll talk in the future.

MIKE LAMACH: Stay safe and well. Thank you.