California has more hospitals, more clinical trial sites, and more reference labs than any other state. It also has 840 miles of freeway between San Diego and Sacramento. Power House Courier runs medical courier service across the entire state, from our LA hub to the Bay Area, with ground rush and Next Flight Out options that get specimens, pharmaceuticals, and surgical instruments where they need to be the same day they're collected. HIPAA compliant, temperature controlled, chain of custody documented.
California Medical Courier · StatewideDispatcher responds within 15 minutes.
California hospital systems we service directly
A clinical trial site at UCSD in La Jolla collects a patient blood sample at 9am. The sponsor's central lab is in South San Francisco. That specimen needs to arrive the same day, at 2-8°C, with a complete chain-of-custody record the CRO can attach to the trial master file. The distance is 500 miles.
A medical courier that only covers San Diego can't help. A courier that only covers the Bay Area can't help. A same-day shipping service that puts the specimen on a FedEx truck with no temperature monitoring and no chain of custody is a compliance risk the sponsor won't accept.
We solve this two ways. For specimens that can tolerate 5-6 hours of ground transit, we run a direct vehicle from San Diego to San Francisco with temperature-controlled packaging and a single driver who maintains custody the entire way. For specimens with tighter stability windows, we put them on Next Flight Out from SAN to SFO, with a driver meeting the cargo on the other end. Either way, the specimen arrives same day with an unbroken chain of custody and a temperature log.
This is what a statewide medical courier does. Not a courier with a website that says "California." A courier with drivers, vehicles, and established relationships at hospitals in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Orange County who can actually move a specimen 500 miles in a day without losing cold chain or documentation.
"UCSD clinical trial site collects a blood sample at 9:05am. Our San Diego driver picks up at 9:42am. Specimen goes into a validated cooler at 4°C. Driver heads to SAN airport. Specimen flies SAN to SFO on the 11:15am flight. Our Bay Area driver collects at SFO cargo at 12:50pm. Delivered to the central lab in South San Francisco at 1:23pm. Temperature log shows 3.8-4.2°C the entire time. Chain-of-custody PDF in the CRO's inbox by 1:35pm."

Each hub has drivers who are credentialed at the local hospital systems, know the dock procedures and lab intake windows, and carry the temperature-controlled packaging needed for medical cargo. When you request a pickup in San Diego, the driver who shows up has been to that hospital before.
LA County, Orange County, Ventura County, Inland Empire, South Bay. Cedars-Sinai, UCLA, USC Keck, CHLA, Kaiser, Providence, City of Hope, Torrance Memorial, Huntington Pasadena. LAX cargo terminal for nationwide NFO. This is our largest hub and handles the majority of California medical courier volume. Most clinical trial sites in Southern California are within a 45-minute drive.
San Diego County and North County biotech corridor. Scripps Health, UC San Diego Health, Sharp HealthCare, Rady Children's Hospital. The Torrey Pines and Sorrento Valley biotech clusters generate a high volume of clinical trial specimen transport. We run daily routes between biotech companies and local reference labs, plus same-day NFO from SAN for specimens going to central labs out of state.
UCSF Medical Center, Stanford Health Care, Kaiser San Francisco, Sutter Health, John Muir Health. The Bay Area has the highest concentration of biotech companies in the country. We handle specimen transport between clinical sites in San Francisco, research labs on the Peninsula, and biotech companies in South San Francisco. SFO and OAK for NFO connections.
Next Flight Out between any two California cities, or from California to anywhere in the US. A specimen collected in Sacramento at 10am can reach a lab in San Diego by 3pm. A pharmaceutical shipment from a compounding pharmacy in Irvine can reach a clinical trial site in Portland by end of day. We coordinate the ground pickups, the flight bookings, and the ground deliveries on the other end.
UCLA, Cedars-Sinai, USC Keck, UCSD, Stanford, City of Hope, and Scripps Research collectively run thousands of active clinical trials at any given time. Each trial has a protocol that specifies exactly how specimens should be packaged, what temperature they need to maintain, and what documentation the sponsor requires.
We don't decide any of that. The protocol does. Our job is to follow it exactly, every time, without cutting corners because the driver thinks a gel pack "looks cold enough." If the protocol says 2-8°C in a validated shipper with a calibrated temperature logger and a chain-of-custody form signed by the site coordinator, that is what happens. Every run.
Most of our clinical trial work involves investigational product (IP) distribution from sponsor depots to clinical sites, patient specimen collection from multi-site trials, and lab kit delivery. We also handle the return of unused IP and the transport of regulatory documentation between sites and IRBs.
If you're a CRO or sponsor looking for a California courier who can handle multi-site trial logistics without creating compliance problems, call us. We can have a BAA signed and a pilot run completed within 48 hours.
Tell us the specimen type, the pickup city, and the delivery city. We'll figure out the fastest route and have a driver dispatched within 15 minutes.
Request California Dispatch ↗ (323) 744-1900, 24/7 info@phcouriers.comPriority dispatch, consolidated invoicing, named account manager. Hospitals and labs: email to set up.
Power House Courier — critical logistics for AoG, organ transport, legal, medical & nationwide freight. Available every hour of every day.