UPS subsidiary Marken has announced that their Direct-to-Patient (DTP) distribution services are now actively delivering to and from 94 cities in India and are expected to be available in 110 cities by the end of May.
The clinical trials specialist is serving the 94 cities from their offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.
The need to develop this service in India was accelerated by the government’s decision to lock down the country effective March 24th which has now been extended until May 18th.
Marken explained that deliveries of medicine to patients confined to their homes while enrolled in a clinical trial is a continuation of its strategy to bring clinical trials closer to patient’s homes.
Home delivery of clinical trial medications to patient’s homes were not previously available in India prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. However, given the critical need to keep patients in their clinical trials, the government has now permitted the service to proceed.
This was made possible due to Marken’s well established Standard Operating Procedures, data protection technology, adherence to Good Distribution Practices (GDP) and Good Clinical Practices (GCP). Marken’s demonstrated success with DTP services in 60 countries has given comfort to the authorities in India.
Ariette Van Strien, President of Marken, commented: “We are proud to offer new Direct to Patient services in India. Our global management technology which ensures patient privacy, coupled with our global logistics experience with home-based trials, have enabled us to add India to our long list of countries where DTP is possible.
“We intend to be the world leader in home-based clinical trial services which will allow our customers to move their new medicines through the pipeline as quickly as possible”.
