Pharmaceutical Commerce's Biopharma Cold Chain Sourcebook, 4th ed., is published

The fourth edition of Pharmaceutical Commerce’s Biopharma Cold Chain Sourcebook projects the current market for cold-chain logistics services to be worth $7.5 billion, rising to $9.3 billion in 2017. That logistics spend supports a portion of current and future biopharma sales estimated at $209 billion today, rising to $288 billion in 2017 (at which time the entire biopharma industry will have sales of $1.25 trillion).

As has been the case in past years, the rate of growth of biopharma cold chain, both product sales and logistics spend, is twice that of the industry overall,” notes Nick Basta, editor of Pharmaceutical Commerce and coauthor of the study. “Although biosimilars—which have been expected to expand the overall market for biologics, due to lower cost—continue to have a delayed rollout, there is sufficient growth in branded pharmaceutical sales and related specialty pharmaceuticals that drives near-term growth.”

The study’s analysis begins with a count of new and existing products that require cold chain (2-8°C) storage and shipping, then measures logistics costs based on overall biopharma logistics spend. The forecast is broken out by region of the world: While the US will remain the world’s largest national biopharma cold-chain logistics market, with $3.09 billion in 2017, it will have grown by only 20.7% by then (relative to 2011). By comparison, the Asia market will grow by 66.5%, to $2.58 billion, and will have surpassed Europe in the volume of logistics spending.

The Sourcebook contains additional details on types of biopharma products, transportation modes, and regulatory initiatives, all updated from the previous year. A directory of service vendors, logistics service providers and technology developers is included.

The 245-page books is available digitally or in hardcopy from Pharmaceutical Commerce. Contact: [email protected].