Can you give an overview of Pharma.Aero and the platform’s main achievements over the past years?

Pharma.Aero is a unique collaborative platform connecting life sciences shippers and service providers to achieve reliable end-to-end air transport for pharmaceutical cargo. The platform concentrates on members that want to provide value to the gaps in the pharmaceutical supply chain and we work with them to resolve those challenges by producing white papers and technical reports. Pharma.Aero is made up of different strategic geographical locations which are represented by the airports, and those airports are neutral centers that provide a geographical region for pharma shippers and other members to connect through. During Covid-19, the industry was fragmented. Pharma.Aero is proud that we were able to bring collaborators and companies together to identify what challenges needed to be addressed. I believe we brought a significant amount of trusted information together, which provided a stable channel or access point for pharma shippers, airlines, airports, and service providers to come together and address gaps in the supply chain.

Can you present the Hope Consortium and the Corridor 2.0 project?

We are proud to work with partners like Hope Consortium in Abu Dhabi which helps provide solutions for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. In 2022, Pharma.Aero in collaboration with the University of Antwerp, the Hope Consortium, and Khalifa University, held our second International Masterclass on Pharma Logistics in Abu Dhabi, talking about the challenges and the opportunities in the supply chain. The Hope Consortium was an incredible partner to be able to show how well they were able to distribute millions of doses of vaccines to parts of the world that are hard to reach, as well as ensure the integrity of the vaccines was in place from end-to-end. Initiatives such as the Corridor 2.0 project help our members to connect and prove the step-by-step methodologies required to ensure end-to-end stability for pharma shipments. From this Brussels to Miami initiative, we were able to produce a tool for industry members to use and collect protocols and route qualifications to develop SOPs and lean risk assessments to guide them in their shipping.

What is the decision-making process behind collaborating with partners?

We are always excited whenever someone like Air Canada, ColdChase, or other big names in this industry decide to become members. We aim to further expand our membership base into North America, Asia, Europe, India, and especially Africa, which is one of the most underserved regions and where the highest need for attention to the supply chains is required. We look to draw down on the uniqueness of how each of our members can provide insight and support through a collaborative nature and focus on the challenges in the air cargo supply chain.

How do you assess the growth of air transportation for biopharma and cell and gene therapy products?

The future of pharma is moving towards individualized treatment processes and protocols, which means we need to start looking more into how biopharma and cell and gene products are moved by air. We are continuing to educate ourselves to understand the requirements these products. The place, purpose, time, and transparency needed in the supply chain are extremely specialized, and this end-to-end capability does not fully exist currently.

What is Pharma.Aero’s growth strategy for 2023?

Our strategy is delivering quality over quantity on our projects in a timeline that our members can appreciate. Delivering value is a top priority for us and we want to connect as many industry partners to ensure the safe and reliable transportation of medicines from the manufacturing plants to the patients that need them most. We are also excited to organize our third International Pharma Logistics Masterclass in Singapore in September, after a very successful 2022 edition that brought together over 120 business executives, industry experts, and international academics in Abu Dhabi.