New cold-chain warehouse and conditioning facility in Belfast

This investment is part of a pharma healthcare strategy to provide Kuehne+Nagel and QuickSTAT customers seamless logistics for all stages of the pharmaceutical life cycle – from early-stage product R&D, clinical trials through to commercialisation.

The larger facility will also support the global growth of Almac, the contract development and manufacturing organisation that provides a range of integrated services across the drug development life-cycle. QuickSTAT opened its original conditioning facility in Belfast in 2016, in partnership with Almac.

Conditioning facilities are used to provide temperature-controlled vacuum insulated packaging (VIP), handling, storage, conditioning and just-in-time global shipping capabilities.

The VIP units provide robust temperature control, which is needed to safely transport biological samples, investigational drugs, cell and gene therapies and other life-saving medicines in clinical trials and commercial distribution.

The use of this packaging means that 99.9% of these shipments will remain within temperature, ensuring integrity and patient safety. This is particularly relevant for large molecule shipments, which are generally temperature controlled. The packaging also helps small molecule sponsors with adherence to Good Distribution Practices.