The Pharmaceutical Industry Currently Relies and Will Continue to Rely Heavily on Air Transport for Its Speed, Reliability and Efficiency in Delivering High-value, Time-sensitive, Temperature-controlled Cargo. Besides Addition of New Airports and Inaugurating New Trade Routes, Airports Have to Be Equipped With Necessary Warehousing Facilities Conducive for Pharmaceutical Products. The Stakeholders in the Air Cargo Supply Chain Need to Focus on End-to-end Visibility, Better Communication and Integrity for Smooth Pharma Supply Chain.
Tracking the journey of a pharmaceutical product from the time it leaves the manufacturer to the time it reaches the end consumer is a complicated and risky process. Vulnerabilities such as poor visibility and temperature excursions can lead to a number of outcomes far more costly than a damaged reputation. Bad deliverables can be the difference between life and death. More often than not, pharmaceutical companies are prone to setbacks when weak points infiltrate the chain of custody.
Given this backdrop, the Pharma Air Shippers’ Forum hosted by Brussels Airport on day one of Air Cargo Africa 2017 brought in different industry stakeholders to deliberate the theme of “Pharma by air – establishing end to end integrity”.
Johan Leunen, Cargo Marketing manager, Brussels Airport Company, who was moderating the session put forth an important question before the shippers on the panel. When it comes to shipping pharmaceuticals by air, what do you consider to be the weakest links and the key concerns?
According to Ryan Viegas, head of Logistics – APAC, TEVA, the highest risk would be at the transit points where shipments are vulnerable to temperature excursions. “Our contention is to monitor the temperature, split shipments by air because quite often you see some of the pallets being split in transit,” he said.
Viegas added that airports are a “black hole” since there is no clue of what is happening inside the airport. “While I do agree, this has something to do with security but when it comes to pharmaceutical products, I think it is our personal interest because it deals with lives hence we need more clarity so that we know what is happening with respect to the temperature,” he pointed out.
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Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av The Stat Trade Times.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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