Serving the silver economy: Redefining healthcare logistics for an aging world

Populations almost everywhere are ageing at an unprecedented pace. By 2030, one in six people globally will be aged 60 or older, and by the mid-2030s, the number of people aged 80 and older will reach 265 million. This demographic wave is turning attention to the so-called “silver economy“, a market projected to be worth $15 trillion by the end of this decade. 

This expanding silver economy presents huge opportunities for healthcare providers, but it also creates a complex new reality for the logistics sector that supports them. The logistics industry must adapt to this ageing world, looking beyond conventional storage and distribution to a future interplay of products and services that will include home hospitalisation, personalised bio-medicines and digital ecosystems. 

In the words of Alexandre de Beaupuy, Development Director for health, beauty and luxury goods at FM Logistic: “This shift underlines a major trend in the pharmaceutical industry, which is the personalisation of treatments to better serve an ageing population.”

The traditional B2B model, where logistics providers distribute cartons of drugs and medical equipment to hospitals and pharmacies, is evolving. The new frontier is “home hospitalisation,” driven by the growing demand for treating chronic conditions and age-related ailments in the comfort of a patient’s home.

However, this transition will not be a simple switch to a B2C model because of the many challenges associated with providing high-quality care to diverse patients across markets. For one, regulatory constraints remain a key hurdle, with many countries barring manufacturers from shipping directly to patients and requiring them to work through specialised associations or pharmacists to ensure safety. Then there are staffing as well as technological considerations to be addressed.

These issues call for a so-called “white glove” service, according to de Beaupuy. While in the luxury sector (where the term originated), such service implies a premium customer experience, in healthcare logistics, it stands for safety, coordination and reliability. “White glove service providers make sure that everything is in place and it’s maintained in a way so that everything works the way it should,” he explains.

This service extends beyond delivery and involves patient-focused activities such as coordinating appointments, managing pill dispensers and ensuring medical equipment is functioning correctly within the home.

As treatments become more personalised, the nature of the drugs themselves is changing. Modern personalised medicines are often bio-medicines or biologics, which need to be stored within strict temperature parameters.

“Bio-medicines almost always need to be stored and transported in a two to eight degrees Celsius range,” de Beaupuy notes. “So while a majority of the drugs you take can be stored within 15-25 degrees, switching to biologics requires cold chain logistics.”

This shift creates a significant infrastructure challenge because the capacity to distribute temperature-controlled products is not fully developed in every country, creating a supply-demand imbalance. That means logistics providers must make significant investments in specialised fleets and temperature-monitoring technology to prevent capacity bottlenecks as the market for bio-medicines rapidly increases.

The silver economy is not just about pharmaceuticals. It is also about medical devices and the physical infrastructure of care. Home hospitalisation requires the delivery, setup and servicing of medical equipment, such as dialysis machines, medical beds and oxygen supplies.

This necessitates a complex form of reverse logistics. While traditional pills are rarely returned due to safety concerns, medical equipment operates on a cyclical model. Warehouses meanwhile are beginning to function like “hospitals in a box,” preparing kits for individual patients that include not just drugs, but the specific tubes, spares and equipment required for a prescribed treatment period.

This creates a continuous loop where logistics providers act as both pharmacy and maintenance crew. “You will also prepare the spare parts and the kits for the people who are doing the maintenance,” says de Beaupuy. 

This circular flow is essential for sustainable home care, ensuring that expensive medical assets are serviced, redeployed or disposed of safely via authorised channels.

While drones and robots are increasingly being deployed to deliver medicine, the immediate technological revolution at scale will be powered by data integration, according to de Beaupuy, who is bullish about the power of digital platforms to coordinate care. 

He believes that the near-term future lies in a “digital cockpit” that aggregates data from wearable sensors, phones and medical devices to focus on prevention rather than just reaction. “Increasingly, we will have monitors in our devices that will alert us and even trigger specific actions without us doing anything more than validate them and ensure that we are not in crisis mode,” he says.

Additionally, AI can be deployed to analyse patient data and logistics providers and healthcare professionals can anticipate needs, for instance, shipping a replacement part for a machine before it breaks or delivering medication before a patient runs out. In this way, the supply chain becomes a “prevention chain.” 

Ultimately, serving this soon-to-be $15 trillion silver economy requires a fundamental reimagining of the supply chain. It demands a shift from bulk delivery to personalised care, from standard trucking to precision cold-chain management, and from reactive shipping to proactive, data-driven coordination. As the population ages, logistics providers will no longer just be movers of goods from one place to another, they will be essential partners in safeguarding people’s health worldwide.