With the publication of the delegated act on safety features, those who manufacture, sell or dispense medications in the European Union have until February 2019 to comply with new track and trace regulations outlined in the Falsified Medicines Directive.

At this point, specialized third-party logistics (3PL) companies seem an ideal solution for successful supply-chain management. It is a big advantage for pharmaceutical companies to be able to deal with the situation without making huge investments and without undertaking complex management of operational processes.

Consolidating warehouses, secondary packaging and distribution operations with a specialized logistics solution partner offers a big advantage of managing the whole supply chain from a single point of contact. Complexity reduction, optimization and efficiency will always be at the top of the priority list of supply-chain managers. Real-time operational performance monitoring and customer complaints management with proactive and impulse solution approach will be effective in operations and customer satisfaction.

Warehouse and distribution operations should be strong and flexible enough to absorb fast rises and falls in sales. Demand-driven inventory planning is still an ideal standard, but there are other methods to restrain cost pressure. The activity-based business model lets companies pay for the service they use, which I believe is the simple and fair partnership model.

Providing product security and regulatory compliance will always be the most important topic in health-care logistics. From raw material to quality assurance, full transparency will be the essential feature of logistics partners.

The overall trend in logistics for the pharmaceutical sector is that customers need comprehensive solutions, and we are aware of that at Ekol. We provide local health-care solutions on a global scale. Our pharmaceutical customers can be divided into manufacturing inputs, pharmaceutical products and vaccines, consumer health-care products, animal health products and vaccines, medical technology products, and vision care products. Companies from these branches belong to the health-care sector, but of course their logistics needs are diversified. They expect their logistics partner to have experience and know-how from their specific area.

Due to the demand, we have rapidly started operations not only in Turkey but in Ukraine and Hungary as well. We are planning to extend our coverage area to Europe and Iran in the near future.