UPS has stepped up its focus on the healthcare sector in Asia with the rollout of two newservices following the opening of its first Asia healthcare regional distribution facility in
Singapore earlier this year.The company has launched UPS Temperature True, a door-to-door cold chain transportation andmonitoring service in Asia, along with PharmaPort 360, a specially-designed airfreight containerfor healthcare cold chain transportation that is being rolled out around the world.
“UPS Temperature True represents our philosophy in managing cold chain transportation. We ensurethat every care is taken throughout the journey to ensure the vaccines, biologics and othertemperature-sensitive healthcare shipments arrive at their destination without compromise” saidCraig Foster, senior vice president, Supply Chain and Healthcare Logistics, UPS Asia Pacific.“Through planning, controls and a strong global logistics network, we minimise one of the highesthealthcare cost elements, wastage due to product spoilage.”
For UPS Temperature True shipments, trained agents monitor shipment milestones 24/7 throughUPS’s control towers positioned around the world. If risk is detected, pre-determined contingencyplans are immediately activated to mitigate any risk of damage or loss.
“These high-value, temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals, vaccines and biologics demand specialcare and handling. They often require global transportation – from the manufacturing plant, to thedoctor and to the end-patient,” said Lim Bee Koong, director, Healthcare Strategy, UPS AsiaPacific. “As much as 30 per cent of the manufacturer’s distribution cost is allocated to potentialspoilage during the storage and transportation process.”
Logistics is crucial to Asia’s healthcare leadership role and industry growth. With increasingglobal research and development, as well as public healthcare investments in Asia, the region isestimated to grow to almost 40 per cent of global revenues in the healthcare industry by 2015, fromthe current revenues of just 27 percent, according to researchers Frost & Sullivan. This isalso reflected in the growth of cold chain logistics spending by 43 per cent in the region, fromUS$1 billion in 2008 to approximately US$1.5 billion in 2011, according to the Cold Chain BiopharmaLogistics Sourcebook in 2010.
Based on UPS’s recent Pain in the (Supply) Chain global healthcare survey, Asia respondents citeregulatory compliance, cost and wastage as their biggest concerns. UPS said its new PharmaPort 360air freight container is designed for handling temperature-sensitive products and addresses the keyindustry issue of safeguarding these shipments.
Unlike other containers on the market, the PharmaPort 360 has built-in sensors that not onlyclosely monitor shipment temperature and GPS location but transmit this data to UPS’s globalcontrol towers via GSM, a standard global cellular network. UPS trained and dedicated control toweragents proactively monitor the container for select “heartbeats” such as internal and externaltemperatures, near real-time location and battery life.
Manufactured by Cool Containers, LLC for UPS, the PharmaPort 360 is designed with input fromboth the UPS, life sciences and other transportation industry experts. The unit is fully validated,tested and exceeds rigorous healthcare industry standards for temperature-sensitive compliance.
What sets the PharmaPort 360 container apart is that it maintains strict temperatures byutilizing both heating and cooling storage technology, allowing it to tolerate a significantlywider range of extreme ambient temperature changes. The container more effectively maintainstemperatures critical for protecting medicines that need to stay within the required 2-8°C.
As a part of UPS’s latest temperature-sensitive capabilities, the PharmaPort 360 is availableexclusively through the UPS Temperature True service.
