News / Airfreight must prepare for a new wave of pharma – 'current processes won't work'

Photo: © Alexander Donin | Dreamstime.com

The air cargo industry risks being unprepared for the next wave of time- and temperature-sensitive products.  

The warning came as DSV is expanding its Air ThermoDirect product with a dedicated corridor between Luxembourg and Indianapolis, both major pharma supply chain hubs, to transport temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals.  

It claimed the service aimed to reduce cost, emissions, and handling complexity and improve end-to-end cold-chain control.  

“By minimising time spent in uncontrolled environments and removing the complexity of active containers, Air ThermoDirect will help pharmaceutical companies protect product integrity while lowering total cost, emissions and operational uncertainty across critical lanes,” said DSV.  

The move comes as the air cargo industry is at risk of being unprepared for a coming wave of personalised medicines that will require radically different handling procedures from traditional pharmaceutical shipments, The Loadstar was told on the sidelines of TIACA’s recent Executive Summit in Warsaw.  

Pharma.Aero secretary general Frank Van Gelder said the industry was still largely focused on established pharmaceutical products, overlooking the logistics implications of emerging treatments, such as cell and gene therapies and radioligands. 

“The current processes in place for big pharma don’t work for these products,” he said. 

Unlike traditional pharmaceutical shipments, many new therapies are highly time- and temperature-sensitive and extremely valuable, requiring rapid transport, full visibility, and multiple contingency plans. 

“It needs faster, short lead times, customs need to be aligned, 100% traceability, 100% visibility, plan B, plan C, plan D,” he explained. 

Indeed, DSV argued that “successful healthcare logistics” were no longer defined by access to capacity alone, but by “control, consistency, and true end-to-end ownership”.  

Mr Van Gelder said while many of these new therapies remained in clinical trials, the industry should not dismiss them as a niche market. 

He pointed to advances in oncology, including personalised treatments and new therapies that can significantly extend survival rates for diseases with historically poor outcomes. 

“We know that, finally, this pipeline is going to commercialise,” he added.

The challenge for air cargo, delegates heard, is that future pharmaceutical flows would become increasingly diverse, with traditional vaccines and medicines moving alongside specialised therapies that each had unique handling requirements. 

“What you will get is a way more complex supply chain, and that is because the treatments are so different,” he said. 

The changes could have major implications for airlines, airports, and ground handlers, particularly as some products present additional operational challenges. Mr Van Gelder cited radioligands, targeted radioactive treatments used in cancer care, as one example. 

“Can you imagine filling a belly of a widebody aircraft with 20 radioactive shipments? That’s a very big challenge.” 

As a result, he believes, the sector may need to rethink how pharmaceutical cargo is handled at airports. 

“You almost need to go to a what I would call ‘commodity-specific’ ground handling,” he said.

But he warned that much of the industry remained focused on current pharmaceutical traffic rather than preparing for the next generation of treatments before they become mainstream. 

“I think they’re very perceptive to this, but I think most of the stakeholders in the supply chain of air cargo, especially in airports, are not yet so busy with it, thinking it is still far away.”