DHL expands Life Sciences Thermonet network 30 June 2014

More than 65 stations to be certified by the end of the year

DHL Global Forwarding is expanding its service offerings for the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry in 13 locations in the Americas, adding to the Company’s worldwide Thermonet network of Certified Life Sciences Stations. The Americas Thermonet locations added to the network include Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Bogota, Colombia; Toronto, Canada; Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; Panama City, Panama; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Caracas and Valencia, Venezuela; and Boston and New York in the US.

The facilities offer 2 to 8 degrees centigrade) cold storage space to serve DHL’s global customer base in the Life Sciences & Healthcare sector with temperature-controlled air freight shipment needs.

DHL plans to integrate more than 65 stations across the globe by the end of 2014 and 80 by the end of 2015. All the facilities are audited against globally defined Good Distribution Practices (GDP) to ensure conformity across the network. Several of the facilities provide temperature monitoring, dry ice replenishing, active and non-active container handling to ensure product quality at all times. For the upcoming months, DHL plans to further expand some of the station’s capabilities with additional storage space.

In recent years, temperature controlled products for the pharmaceutical industry have gained significant importance. The driving force is biotechnology products, which generally must be kept within a strict temperature range during transportation. The worldwide sales volume of this product category tripled from US$56.0 billion in 2004 to an estimated US$167.0 billion in 2013. Further growth is expected in the future.