The ask for official transportation solutions in the pharmaceutical industry in Austria and in the surrounding Eastern European worldwide locations has risen sharply in contemporary years. The added impress of the domestic pharmaceutical industry by myself portions to about EUR 9.6 billion – this corresponds to about 2.8 percent of Austria’s GDP.
“Vienna Airport performs an predominant role as an export and hub save. Most most considerable pharmaceutical producers are positioned in the catchment home,” Michael Zach, Senior Vice President Ground Handling & Cargo Operations at Vienna Airport, talked about. “The industry has a huge ask for shipments of high-impress prescription tablets with finest dealing with quality and rapid lead times.
“The final few years had been characterized by sustained development. The old document year of 2022 changed into all every other time rather exceeded with 3,675 tonnes in 2023, an buy bigger of 0.3 percent. Pharma dealing with persisted to upward push, with 1,825 tonnes or 8.2 percent extra handled on the airport in the first half of 2024.”
Ready for ask
As the finest airport in Central and Eastern Europe with its possess pharmaceutical centre, established in 2018, Vienna Airport affords a complete pause-to-pause pharmaceutical provider, i.e. dealing with from aircraft to truck and vice versa from a single source. The equipment, i.e. warehouse, dealing with vehicles and monitoring machine, as properly as all processes are cutting-edge work.
A bellow connection between airside and landside, as properly as rapid distances to the aircraft on the tarmac, make sure like a flash processes. Mobile refrigeration equipment ensures protected transport between the air and land aspects, as an illustration, special cool trailers and thermos blankets are feeble. There are furthermore four cool trailers with a temperature range of -20°C to +29°C. These trailers join the VPHC to the aircraft with out temperature deviation.
Vienna Airport furthermore has a solid network of flights to the Middle East, Asia and North The United States. As properly as, the carefully timed road feeder network and Vienna’s central space enable like a flash onward distribution thru Europe’s dense road network. Within 36 hours, 23 worldwide locations is more likely to be reached by road.
“We had been thus ideally equipped in Vienna for rising dealing with volumes, in particular right thru the COVID pandemic. The miscellaneous items handled thru the VPHC consist of varied human clinical merchandise equivalent to plasma and albumin solutions, vaccines, surgical glue and veterinary merchandise,” Zach outlined.
“On the different hand, the very prime quality of our processes is the same for all pharmaceutical merchandise. At Vienna Airport, we have viewed an upturn in all product groups since the originate of the pandemic.
“We request the tonnage of temperature-comely cargo at Vienna Airport to buy bigger even extra in the future. Due to the tempo and the low number of intersections in comparison with land transport, the aircraft will remain the most get and most official transport system for temperature-comely items on an intercontinental scale. We’re properly ready for a continuation of the fashion in direction of increasing pharmaceutical transports.”
Adapted operations
Given the sensitivity of these merchandise, the dealing with and storage of high-impress prescription tablets at airports presents quite rather a lot of challenges. These challenges range from asserting strict temperature controls to making sure safety and regulatory compliance.
“At Vienna Airport, we have a properly-equipped facility (VPHC) and devoted workers to ensure entirely official and like a flash dealing with processes for this comely cargo,” Zach outlined.
“The VPHC has intensive monitoring sensors for temperature, humidity, CO2, air power and CCTV to ensure seamless monitoring and documentation of the handled medicines alongside your complete chilly chain, including the refrigerated trailers and the exterior home. The guidelines can furthermore be made available to our prospects on request.
“The Long-established Working Procedures (SOPs) of Vienna Airport are in step with pointers and the requirements of particular person prospects and agree to the relevant world Honest Distribution Practice (GDP) to ensure the protected dealing with of prime quality medicines and vaccines.
“These SOPs are continually updated in step with customer solutions and new regulatory requirements. To avoid wasting its high requirements, Vienna Airport conducts smartly-liked audits and compliance assessments of its pharma dealing with processes. These assessments make sure every protocols are adopted and that the airport stays compliant with world regulations and requirements.”
