Pharmaceutical logistics specialist PharmaFreight has expanded its MHRA-licensed LHR site in Ashford, Kent, UK to include a cold room to house children’s medicines, high value cancer drugs and life-saving treatments for UK Government health workers on deployment.
The Viessmann cold room was supplied by Cold Store Rentals, based in Hook, Hampshire. It includes Zanotti twin/dual packaged refrigeration systems each offering 65% duty to ensure that cold chain products are kept at between +2 and +8°C.
The cold room has been temperature-mapped in line with GDP, monitoring how it performs in various scenarios such as an impact test (turning it off to simulate a breakdown or power cut); what happens when both full and empty of product; and also with the door open to monitor how the temperature would change if someone were to leave the door open inadvertently.
Cold Store Rentals is also providing a 24/7 support service for this PharmaFreight site.
PharmaFreight's Commercial Director, Andy Hughes, commented: 'Under the new GDP (Good Distribution Practice) healthcare regulations, 99% of healthcare products require some kind of temperature control. In light of this and due to our ongoing development and growth, we invested in a larger refrigeration facility and new fully temperature-controlled warehouse which enables us to offer services that we couldn’t before.
'Our site is fully licensed by the MHRA and we are one of a handful of transportation companies with a WDA (Wholesale Distribution Authorisation), meaning that we can safely transport medicines brought into the UK for distribution, and also to named patients and sites around the world.'