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Controlled room temperature takes center stage

Sanofi-Aventis speaker points to multiple challenges in shipping medications by air, land, and sea.

Patients should expect to receive quality medicine on time, safe, and effective said Shirley-Ann Feld of Sanofi-Aventis during day two at IQPC’s Cool Chain Logistics Europe 2013 in Basel, Switzerland.

And any medicines that require controlled temperature storage should also be transported appropriately.

With the new upcoming European Union Good Distribution Practice guidelines out soon, a risk-based approach needs to be utilized. Different approaches need to be evaluated to develop the right room temperature control supply chain strategy.

Transportation is more complex than you think. You must understand the distribution chain being used, identify potential risks, perform a risk analysis, and choose the correct transport mode.

One misconception is that most distribution within the EU is by plane, but actually most drug shipments are transported by truck, at least for Sanofi-Aventis.  However, there are two types of truck in the EU, typical box trailers similar to the U.S., and the soft-sided or even soft-topped tautliner.

One test performed by Sanofi-Aventis was to split shipments in both types of truck and run them to the same destination—France to Switzerland and France to Portugal. Testing revealed that the tautliner experienced much more temperature deviations.

Temperature-regulated box trailers were found to be most effective. Other factors that influenced temperature were immediate loading and unloading of cargo rather than letting the trailer sit on a loading dock. 

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