More cold-chain logistics resources: 'City of Pharma' in Italy, and upgraded facilities in southeast Asia

Healthcare products shippers now have more options in Europe and in southeast Asia. CEVA Logistics (Milan) has opened what it calls the “City of Pharma” in Stradella, Pavia province, in northern Italy. The 20,000-sq.m. facility is dedicated to healthcare products and will be a hub for Italy, parts of Europe, and Eastern Europe. The Stradella site was chosen as for its strategic location and the intersection of major Italian communication, rail and road routes, allowing CEVA to reach approximately 13,000 pharmacies, 500 hospitals and 400 wholesalers, with a total of about 350,000 shipments per year. Cold chain storage and monitoring are a basic part of the facility, although CEVA did not divulge a capacity figure for that.

"The official opening of this warehouse reinforces CEVA’s leading presence in the Italian market and commitment to providing unique solutions for the healthcare industry. We also continue to implement our strategy of creating specialized multi-customer logistics hubs that deliver true value and considerable economies of scale,” said Giuseppe Chiellino, managing director, Italy.

Meanhwhile the “market expansion services” of logistics and trading firm DKSH (Zurich; Asian HQ in Bangkok) has been enhanced with dedicated healthcare cold-chain facility expansion, and the addition of security, monitoring controls, training and upgraded SOPs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and China, according to a company statement. DKSH operates in 13 southeastern Asian markets, and combines logistics with repackaging, regulatory filings, and sales and marketing support. A company spokesman adds that countries that DKSH operates in such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan have focused distribution standards aligned with WHO, the EU and the US FDA, while others, such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are more localized; the company is driving toward a common level of performance in all these countries. DKSH has also announced recent contract wins with the Thailand unit of Japan’s Kyowa Hakko Kirin, specializing in biotechnology products, and with GSK in Hong Kong.