LOGISTICAL PHARMA CENTER OF EUROPE
Belgium has turned the past years into a pivotal distribution center for pharmaceuticals, thanks to excellent logistics partners, impressive road, airport and seaport infrastructure and its ideal geographical location. It is important to keep on investing in pharma and logistics, two vital sectors for our economy.
There are few places in the world that can boast both a world class pharmaceutical industry and a well-developed logistical network. Belgium is one of those places.
While Belgium has 32 pharmaceutical production sites on its territory, it also has 10 global or European pharma distribution centers, as well as more than 100 logistic support providers.
Belgium is the pharma gateway to Europe, and even to the world. Today’s challenge is to maintain this leading position.
BEST CARGO AIRPORTS IN THE WORLD
Liege Airport has just received the ‘Best Cargo Hub of the Year’ Award ! This international recognition is the result of a successful bold strategy focussed on cargo, diversification and innovation.
The pharmaceutical industry requires a cutting-edge infrastructure to ensure perfect handling of these highly sensitive products. Over the years, Liege Airport has attracted all the players needed to ensure optimal handling, to guarantee the integrity and the quality of these very particular goods.
- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week warehouses, airport services and customs.
- 3 minutes from the motorway, at the heart of the golden triangle between Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt.
- Infrastructure dedicated to the transport of medical and pharmaceutical products.
- A cargo service dedicated 100% to biotechnologies.
- The CEIV certificate.
Operating from Liege Airport, The Flexport® dispatches medicines, pharmaceutical products, organs and stem cells by road and by air. It is at the cutting edge of the demands of the pharmaceutical industry and offers unprecedented opportunities for development, at the heart of Europe. Its services are certified by IATA.
Brussels Airport was the first airport in the world where stakeholders of the cargo community received the CEIV Pharma certification.
As the 1st and largest airport community in the world where stakeholders are CEIV Pharma certified, Brussels Airport stands out internationally for its dedicated infrastructure for the transport and handling of products that require an unbroken cold chain, in particular pharmaceutical and biotech products.
Brussels Airport developed the program in collaboration with IATA and was the pilot airport with its cargo community approach. We validated the CEIV checklist together with the pharmaceutical shippers in the BRU pharma shippers forum. The CEIV pharma certification program became the standard in our industry. IATA is now rolling out the program on a global level.
One of the principal stakes in the pursuit of this development is the transportation of these products to their final destination. The manufacturers have high expectations and specific requirements with regard to maintaining the quality of the products and the properties of the active ingredients throughout the logistics chain. They call on transportation services that, on the one hand, ensure the shortest route to the final customer and, on the other hand, maintain the quality of the product through an unbroken cold chain. For these companies, transport by air remains the best possible solution.
