FedEx Express expands Life Science Center in Tokyo to better serve its healthcare customers

FedEx Life Science Center

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FedEx Express has renewed its Life Science Center in Tokyo, Japan to better meet the logistics requirements of healthcare customers both within the Japan domestic market and those shipping to Japan globally. This expansion follows the May 2019 renovation of TNT Life Science Center in Tokyo.

The enhanced 3,500 sq m Life Science Center, is a hub for storage and transportation of investigational medication product in Japan and is designed for clinical trial logistics. According to FedEx its renovation guarantees an 80% increase in clinical drug storage capacity. Further improvements include:

  • the expansion of the chiller rooms and ambient rooms with two separate temperature zones of between 2 °C to 8 °C and 20 °C;
  • the establishment of an allocation room where investigational medication products and placebos can be assigned inside the facility;
  • the provision of a humidity control for the chiller rooms, ambient rooms and allocation room;
  • the establishment of a frozen storage unit, enabling temperatures of between -20°C and -30°C;
  • a centralised monitoring system to ensure temperature and humidity integrity and across all temperature-controlled facilities.

Overseas pharmaceutical customers can now ship investigational medication product in bulk instead of individually to the Life Science Center, which will store them in temperature-controlled facilities. The drugs can then be delivered to Japanese hospitals in temperature-controlled packaging systems. The unused drugs can then be retrieved from the hospitals and stored in the Life Science Center for return to the origin or destruction.

According to FedEx, Japan is the second fastest growing mature pharmaceutical market in the world, close behind the U.S. and expecting dramatic rise in generics and biosimilars in 2020.

“Asia Pacific is fast gaining preference from global pharma companies as a key destination for conducting clinical trials given the large patient pool and cost efficiencies,” said Karen Reddington, president, Asia Pacific, FedEx Express, “Our customers benefit from healthcare logistics expertise and a global networks that guarantees compliance with import and export regulations.”

The company said that it remains committed to serving customers in the pharmaceutical sector with specialised logistics needs. Earlier this year, FedEx Express launched the MedPak VI°C solution, a reusable thermal packaging that provides 96 hours of temperature stability as well as SenseAware, which monitors temperature, humidity, pressure and location of packages during delivery.

Source: FedEx

 

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