Award Recipients

Carramore International Ltd is honoured to receive the King’s Award in 2024, following on from the Queen’s Award in 2019.

Carramore operates as a buying and logistics supplier to the international medical and life science research community, working on projects in Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Its customers are focused on research, not the healthcare sector, although improving lives and reducing mortality is the primary focus. Infectious diseases feature heavily, including major global diseases such as TB, HIV, malaria and influenza, as well as recent high-profile diseases such as Ebola, Zika and Covid-19.

Alasdair Grant, Carramore MD, says: “I am extremely proud of the way our team pulled together, from the outset, to help the research world address the challenges posed by Covid-19, supplying equipment for testing, sequencing of the virus and vaccine development whilst supplying existing research projects.”

This period coincided with the supply chain becoming extremely difficult due to extraordinary worldwide demands on science and healthcare. Compounding this was the extreme logistic challenge as the number of flights and the cargo capacity to LMICs was greatly reduced. These logistic challenges entailed Carramore engaging in novel ways, including putting cargo on to US Air Force planes and the outward leg of a UK government organised evacuation flight.

Carramore has expanded to work in over 100 countries, supplying products from thousands of suppliers with complex cold chain and hazard requirements, all within a highly regulated environment involving many licences and permits across a wide range of scientific disciplines; collecting samples from humans, other animals and plants as well as collecting the animals themselves.

Laboratory disciplines include clinical chemistry and haematology, microbiology, parasitology and immunology. Molecular biology now features in many projects as the field advances so rapidly, including crucially products for Next Generation Sequencing, which were used to establish the evolving variants of Covid, as well as other diseases.

As an IATA cargo agent Carramore work directly with the airlines, with some bulky shipments shipped by sea. Additionally, in many countries they also manage the destination customs clearance process, final delivery, handling regulatory issues and maintenance of the cold chain.