DHL's Clinical Trials service doubles the number of its depots
Number of global sites doubled from 8 to 16
More countries integrated into international life sciences supply chains including USA, India and China
The demand for clinical trials logistics is becoming increasingly global.
DHL has further strengthened its position as a leading global Clinical Trials Logistics provider, by doubling the number of its global depots from 8 to 16 to include India, China, Panama, Canada, USA, Chile, Argentina and Lebanon. DHL now offers its successful Clinical Trials Logistics (CTL) service across 64 countries worldwide. This expansion of DHL's expertise enables the leading logistics provider to service additional key research sites around the world, to integrate emerging markets into global supply chains and to strengthen customers' global research efforts in the fight against major illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's disease and arthritis.
Says Chris Tierney, Director of the Clinical Trials Logistics service at DHL Supply Chain: "Clinical research is becoming increasingly global and so is the demand for clinical trials logistics. Over the last four years, we have met this challenge by doubling our depot network while providing a consistent quality of standards, processes, capabilities and pricing. We are confident that we can play a key role in the further globalization of clinical trials to help accelerate the discovery of new and groundbreaking treatments."
Developing a supply strategy
When developing a supply strategy for a global clinical study, DHL carefully balances supply needs with the budget limitations that customers must deal with - reinforced by the current economic climate. Key benefits of DHL's CTL solutions, such as depot rationalization, tax efficiency and dedicated project management, help customers to improve return on clinical investment. By doubling the number of clinical trial depots, DHL has increased its capacity to support global clinical research projects, including so-called "mega-trials" in the pharmaceutical and vaccine industries.
It adds value to customers' supply chains by scaling down customers' distribution networks into fewer supply points which can deliver into an increasing number of geographically diverse delivery end points. All the clinical trial depots are working to global industry quality standards. Further depots, such as a Middle East multi-market hub, may be added to the network if demand arises.
DHL customers from the health care industry include large and medium sized pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as clinical research organizations. They benefit from DHL's business units working together to be able to provide all aspects required to manage a global clinical trial supply chain; from inbound transport logistics to storage, to customs brokerage and network design, right through to the final mile. Based on DHL's global presence and unrivalled transport infrastructure, the Clinical Trials team combines knowledge of import laws, regulatory insight and local expertise to design customized health care supply chains.