Following its partnership with DHL Road to offer a cold chain service, Express Trailers, the total logistics solution company, has introduced the first round-the-clock temperature-controlled and remote-monitored export facilities available to Malta's pharmaceutical industry.

Developed by Maltese firm Loqus (formerly Datatrak) the system is currently being used as a prototype by one of Express Trailers' major pharmaceutical clients.

Express Trailers director Jonathan Vella told The Sunday Times the €250,000 investment allowed a Maltese company to provide an important link in the logistical supply chain within the local pharmaceutical cluster. The firm was also able to compete with international organisations looking to enter the local market to provide high quality transportation services to this major industry.

DHL Road initiated a new product, DHL Cold Chain, which operates designated trucks transporting leased container loads destined for a cross-docking station of laboratory standard in France on the border with Switzerland.

"Express Trailers is able to use the depot to redistribute pharmaceutical products originating from Malta," Mr Vella explained. "Our local pharmaceutical manufacturers require specialised transport of small container loads. With this new offering, we are able to accommodate them with very good connections with Europe, using DHL's sub-network from France to a range of destinations on the continent, including the Eastern bloc."

Major pharmaceutical manufacturing concerns operating in Malta are among Express Trailers' clients.

To ensure uncompromised quality, drug companies have a stringent goods distribution practice in place covering goods' transportation which requires loads to be tracked for movement and temperature. Mr Vella explained how temperature-controlled trailers designated exclusively for pharmaceutical use are constantly monitored remotely.

Express Trailers recently passed a quality audit after which it was certified to provide and adhere to a host of quality procedures governing the movement of pharmaceuticals in a variety of scenarios, including emergencies.

Information on every batch in each shipment is uploaded online. Using a password, clients are allowed access to data detailing position and temperature that is updated every 20 minutes. The 'information on demand' facility means clients are able to flag alerts if transportation temperatures are not satisfactory and a change procedure is triggered.

The system keeps an audit trail of all alarms, and all changes are documented.

Mr Vella said Express Trailers was the only company of its kind in Malta to offer service of these standards, particularly in terms of quality, real-time information procedures, and access to a network as wide as DHL's.

The Luqa-based operation has run training programmes to familiarise teams with goods distribution practices, updated processes and new procedures.

With a staff complement of over 160, Express Trailers services the road freight industry across Europe. Malta's largest manufacturing exporters make up its client portfolio.

On Monday, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech highlighted the pharmaceutical sector's economic significance. Addressing the seventh World Meeting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in Valletta, Mr Fenech said the local industry had maintained its economic momentum.

After surviving the economic shocks, the sector was now in a position to consolidate and expand. In Malta, the sector's value added reached 300 per cent of the average value added of all the direct productive activities and was the sector which contributed mostly to Malta's local added value, the minister said.

Annually, each person employed in this sector adds around €110,000 worth of value, whereas the average of the whole manufacturing sector is €32,000. Employment in this sector has increased by 50 per cent in the last three years to reach 1,200, Mr Fenech added.

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