UPS is breaking ground on a 40,000 square metre built-to-suit healthcare logistics facility in Italy. The GMP-compliant facility is scheduled to open July 2022.

The Rome building will include multiple validated controlled temperature environments for healthcare products requiring -20 to -80˚C, +2 to +8˚C and +15 to +25˚C storage.

The cold-chain operation will support pharmaceutical and medical device customers in Italy and provide another direct link from Europe to UPS’s global network.

“We continue to expand our industry leading cold-chain capabilities in the European market,” said Wes Wheeler, president of UPS Healthcare. “Our new facility in Rome will service the growth needs of our healthcare clients in a country that manufactures many of the world’s most important sterile pharmaceuticals.”

When combined with UPS’s active temperature-controlled delivery services, this expansion highlights the company’s position as a provider for end-to-end cold-chain distribution and transportation.

“Our experience moving critical healthcare shipments, including Covid-19 vaccines, means that more of our clients are looking to us,” said Kate Gutmann, senior vice president at UPS Global Healthcare. “We’re investing heavily in our global cold chain so we can continue to be a market leader in this space.”

This expansion, in addition to facility investments in Singapore, Shanghai, Australia and several key markets in the USA, is another step in implementing UPS Healthcare’s strategy. Recent investments also include: a GMP facility in Birmingham, UK; a warehouse in the Czech Republic; cold chain expansion and a freezer farm in the Netherlands; and a second central GMP facility near Warsaw, Poland.

The company now operates 125 GDP and GMP facilities in 34 countries around the world.

UPS Healthcare continues to provide services addressing the full range of logistics needs from healthcare-licensed distribution space, to supply chain management, kitting, packaging and fulfilment of medical devices, labs and clinical trial specimens. The company’s global infrastructure, monitoring and tracking capabilities, and private data protection are said to make it a supply chain expert that remains flexible, agile and responsive to myriad logistics demands.