Brussels Airport and Miami Airport announced they will set up a new global organisation focussing on improved pharma handling and quality in the air cargo industry. The ultimate goal of the organisation is to realise, together with the pharma manufacturers, lane certification for pharma transportation by air, increasing quality and transparency.
The new organisation, pharma.aero, will focus on airport communities that embraced the IATA CEIV programme and that are looking to further build on the expertise gained thanks to this programme. Other members and individual companies will be able to join if they share the same objectives and goals of the organisation. The two highlighted however, that the objective will not be to have as many members as possible, but to focus on quality and content.
Brussels Airport was the first and today still the largest CEIV community in the world when launching the programme together with IATA at end-2014. Last year, Miami was the first airport organising a similar community setup in the Americas. Both have been working together and sharing ideas in the past year on the topic of pharma and cool chain and wish to continue to do so in an even formal and structured way. This has led to the creation of the new organisation.
The new organisation will have 3 main activities:
– Networking and events: bringing all stakeholders together and creating an intense dialogue between a selective group of individuals and companies;
– Standard setting: bench marking, creation of standard protocols, joint projects, innovation;
– Network of excellence for its members: sharing best practises, audit support, setting up of a knowledge centre.
“As the busiest US airport for international freight, perishable imports and temperature-controlled products, MIA seized the opportunity to further grow the local pharmaceutical transport industry by rallying the local cargo community and engaging them in the IATA CEIV Pharma Certification Program,” said airport director Emilio T. Gonzalez.
“And, after becoming the first IATA-designated pharma hub airport in the United States (and second in the world), we now turn our efforts to leveraging our strength as a pharma hub by collaborating with other airports around the world who share a common goal of strengthening pharma certified trade lanes and extending pharma cold supply chains to reach new international markets. We are very pleased to work with our friends at BRU on this important initiative.”
Steven Polmans, head of cargo at Brussels Airport, added: “In the past 3 to 4 years, we have been working very closely with the pharma manufacturers, which has resulted in the IATA CEIV Program we organised at Brussels. This continuous dialogue has indicated to us that there still is a lot of work to be done before we can consider ourselves as a true and reliable transport partner for them.
“We now want to continue and strengthen our approach by bringing it on a global level to create end to end solutions for the pharma industry. The organisation will be very much content focussed, developing solutions and creating transparency in very close co-operation with the pharma industry”.
Some details still need to be finalised, but by October the organisation will be officially launched and more details and information will be provided the two said. At that time, other members will be announced, including some pharma manufacturers.
