Montevideo, December 1st 2017
World Courier and MVD Free Airport, the first and only multimodal airport free zone in Latin America, have formed a partnership that will significantly enhance pharmaceutical distribution throughout Latin America. After an exhaustive diligence process, MVD Free Airport was identified by World Courier as a key partner to provide a traceable, specialized and cost-efficient entry point for Latin American distribution, a solution that is up to par with World Courier’s global quality standards.
This partnership presents an innovative distribution design to serve South America’s largest markets. Marcos Lacués, Branch Manager of World Courier Uruguay explains more:
Marcos Lacués: World Courier has long identified the necessity to enhance and improve the distribution of pharmaceutical products in emerging markets, and has been undergoing an arduous due diligence to ensure our key partners in every region are up to global World Courier standards. We’ve been familiarized with MVD Free Airport, its organizational culture, as well as its specific pharma experience, and together understood that our capabilities complemented each other perfectly. After the construction of the Pharma Hub facilities, it became clear that the benefits presented to Uruguay and the LATAM region via a mutual collaboration would have a huge impact on our customers and the pharma sector in general.
ML: With the globalization of the supply chain and the identification of the main commercial opportunities primarily in emerging markets, pharma organizations are facing key challenges that need to be addressed. This includes optimizing long-hauls, centralizing distribution for leaner stock management, and standardizing last-mile delivery taking into account regional and local contexts. With the MVD Free Airport regime and the Pharma Hub Facilities, these customers can have access to optimal in-transit storage conditions in a tax-free regime that allows for the performance of packaging and late-customization activities. This, combined with a World Courier’s global know-how and expertise provides pharma organizations with a one-stop solution to regional distribution. This is especially the case for time- and temperature-sensitive materials and high-value products, which is where the partnership between MVD Free Airport and World Courier becomes a vital necessity for customers.
ML: By centralizing stocks and postponing customization activities, pharma organizations are able to reduce stock-outs, enable just-in-time replenishments, minimize excess inventory at final destinations, and significantly reduce supply lead times. All of this while ensuring their inbound/outbound logistics, storage and handling will be up to par with the most demanding pharma service level standards.
World Courier and MVD Free Airport have symbolized this collaborative spirit with the implementation of the first Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) designed for specific material handling, storage and shipment dispatching for Brazil-bound specialty products, ensuring that every task is performed ‘The World Courier Way’.
For full article:
https://www.worldcourier.com/insights-events/market-insights/detail/LATAM-MVD-partnership
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc
Montevideo, November 30th 2017
The globalization of the supply chain combined with the burgeoning commercial opportunities in emerging markets is presenting global players with unprecedented distribution challenges. The incremented volumes of cargo to emerging markets has generated a context of uncertainty and complexity in terms of availability, foreseeability, quality assurance and costs. Brazil and Argentina, countries that combined represent the third largest global emerging market are resuming economic growth after more than 3 turbulent years. This is having significant impact in the import volumes of cargo in general and generating an overall regional context that remains uncertain moving forward, an uncertainty towards which pharma shippers have particular sensitivity.
Given this challenging context, Uruguay is currently being analyzed and selected by leading global pharmaceutical companies as an entry point for South American distribution due to its economic and political stability, service-level reliability, state-policy towards its positioning as a regional logistics platform and beneficial tax and legal framework. With its multimodal transport capabilities, cargo can be shipped to Uruguay and distributed in the region by land, sea or air.
Understanding the challenging regional air freight context to which Uruguay is currently subject, MVD Free Airport is working closely with, pharma shippers, airlines and freight forwarders globally in the design of a dedicated pharma route from Europe to Montevideo ensuring connectivity between Europe and the region and providing several last-mile distribution possibilities. The design of the route is 100% pharma specific, including a pharma-certified gateway in Europe, an exclusive freighter and a pharma-certified regional distribution center in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The benefits of this route for pharmaceutical shippers include guaranteed weekly allocation, end-to-end route cost-efficiencies, shipments via an integral pharma route, temp excursions and security risk mitigation, strategic check-points eliminating the risk of held cargo at local customs due to documentation discrepancies, as well as a multimodal, tax-exempt distribution platform with primary and secondary packaging capabilities at MVD Free Airport to perform the last-mile more efficiently.
Current stages of the development process include the validation of future volumes by several leading global pharma players and the commencement of the diligence process for the identification of the most competitive carriers.
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc
Montevideo, November 13th 2017
Last month, the Uruguayan gateway became a member of Pharma.Aero and the 7th airport to join following the launch by founding members Miami International Airport and Brussels Airport last year.
MVD Free Airport managing director, Bruno Guella says overall tonnage has increased 404 per cent year-on-year (YOY) in 2017, as a result of initiatives it has been running since mid-2015.
These have included inaugurating Phase 1 of its Pharma Hub, restructuring information systems for further automation and traceability and developing a consultative commercial approach to global players.
Guella says it has received “widespread acceptance” given the understanding of regional complexities and challenges alongside a “convenient geographic location and unique tax and legal framework”.
He says pharma plans have been well received: “Global players in the pharma and high-tech industry have located their regional distribution centres at MVD Free Airport, having deposited their trust in early stages of our development.
“This has done nothing, but increase our commitment to service-level excellence and to continuous improvement, and is also a very strong vote of confidence from the pharma industry itself, a validation of our value proposition to the pharma supply chain.”
The airport is seeing strong interest in pharma and Guella notes a big pull is its easy access to large emerging markets such as Brazil and Argentina – which are the main drivers.
Joining Pharma.Aero is set to drive business and Guella says it is a firm believer in the value of knowledge sharing and a strong sense of community – essentially what it is all about along with creating standardised trade lanes.
He explains: “Understanding local complexities, the underlying culture, the variance in terms of infrastructure, quality partners, climate, all these things drive the need to understand the supply chain from a global perspective, and in that sense we feel we can add value operating in the third largest emerging region in the world while being up to date with tendencies, benchmarks and innovation.”
MVD is positioning itself as a pharma gateway into LATAM and Guella says it is easy to enter, has a convenient tax and legal framework, in a country oriented towards providing a lean supply chain, best-in-class information systems and infrastructure and the possibility to seamlessly enter the larger markets.
He adds: “Global pharma players are currently distributing to South American major markets via MVD Free Airport, including cargo that is not inbound nor outbound by air. Our multimodal capabilities facilitate the development of tailored solutions to any distribution need, no matter how cargo arrives or leaves.
“Large pharma players are centralising purchase orders at MVD Free Airport, allowing for a smarter stock management, just-in-time replenishment based on having their safety stocks for the region based at MVD Free Airport.”
“One of our roles is to consolidate the aggregate demand of different shippers with distribution needs in the region, helping to improve their supply chain management operating via MVD, and providing input to forwarders and airlines so new solutions are created,” he says.
For full Report:
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc
Panama City, October 19th 2017
The 27th Airports Council International (ACI) World Annual General Assembly met in Mauritius this 18 October and renewed its leadership. Bongani Maseko, CEO, Airports Company South Africa, has been elected as ACI World’s new Chair. Martin Eurnekian, CEO, Corporación América and President, ACI Latin America-Caribbean (LAC), has also been appointed as Vice-Chair for the period from January 2018–December 2019.
The election of Martin Eurnekian becomes the first time in which a LAC airport executive is elected to such a distinction role at ACI. Martin Eurnekian expressed his gratitude to the ACI World Board Members for the trust and confidence in supporting his election.
“ACI is committed to continuing to advocate for airports so that sound operational and economic policies are promoted and embraced by all aviation stakeholders to facilitate the sustainable growth of the air transport system throughout the world,” said Martin Eurnekian. “I thank the ACI Assembly for its vote of confidence to be part of the new leadership for the next two years.” “I welcome Martin Eurnekian as ACI World’s new Vice-Chair,” said Angela Gittens. “He has been an active member of ACI Latin America-Caribbean for more than 10 years and President since 2016. In those years he has closely engaged with international organizations, including the International Civil Air Organization, in order to improve the sector’s safety, security and efficiency and his insights will serve the world’s airports aptly.”
Several resolutions, fundamental to the interest of airports, were adopted at the ACI World Annual General Assembly, including actions that promote the sustainable development of aviation and continual improvement of the customer experience. During the Assembly, Martin Eurnekian also joined the approval of a resolution that urges policy-makers and regulators to set the right economic incentives for sustainable infrastructure development through light-handed and more commercially oriented oversight frameworks proportionate to the degree of market power of airports.
The ACI World Annual General Assembly was held in conjunction with the ACI Africa Annual Conference and Exhibition, and it attracted more than 500 airports and aviation leaders from around the world.
About Airports Council International – Latin America & Caribbean (ACI-LAC)
ACI-LAC is the LatinAmerica & Caribbean region of Airports Council International, the only worldwide professional association of airport operators. ACI-LAC represents over 260 airports in 36 countries. Member airports handle 95% of commercial air traffic in LatinAmerica & Caribbean, welcoming over 570 million passengers, 5.4 million tonnes of freight and more than 9.0 million aircraft movements each year.
For full report:
http://www.aci-lac.aero/email/2017/documents/PRESS_Realease_Eurnekian-Vicepresidente-ACI-WORLD-SP.pdf
Barcelona, October 12th 2017
MVD Free Airport was present in IATA’s 2017 Air Pharma Conference in Barcelona, Spain speaking on the Pharma Supply Chain Complexities in Emerging Markets. Bruno Guella, Managing Director, discussed the reasons for presenting such a topic to IATA Air Pharma’s global audience: “Pharma global players are facing many challenges in global distribution, and especially in emerging markets, where specific complexities need to be considered. Understanding regional and local contexts, uneven playing fields in terms of infrastructure, IT and human capital, as well as the different local cultures are key aspects in the design of a smart supply chain on which pharma players are putting significant focus .”
He added, “The commercial opportunities found in emerging markets are making this issue more and more present in organizational strategies. It is important that, as a pharma supply chain community, all players collaborate to a fast deployment of optimal distribution strategies by sharing best practices and lessons learnt for, at the end of the day, it is all about getting the product to the people that need it in a timely, secure and cost-efficient manner. We all have to be aligned towards this ultimate goal”.
Regarding the plans at MVD Free Airport he mentioned that “MVD Free Airport has been undergoing an agile transformation process supported by Uruguay’s state policy to promote the country as a gateway to South American business. We have enhanced our client-centered information systems on the cloud, are adding modules to our best-in-class cold chain facilities and working under IATA CEIV Pharma Certification program. This, along with our multimodal transport capabilities, primary and secondary packaging possibilities and strong regional network of airports, ports and transportation companies positions MVD Free Airport as a key partner for global pharmaceutical companies with large stakes in the region.”
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc
Montevideo, October 12th 2017
The global pharmaceutical Company with headquarters based in London has recently implemented a strategic Logistics operation in Uruguay deserving the nomination to the prestigious Logipharma Awards 2017 taking place in Stuttgart, Germany. This nomination cements Astrazeneca’s positioning as one of the leading pharmaceutical companies worldwide, with focus on the research, development manufacturing and commercialization of high-value prescription medicine for the betterment of the health and quality of life of its patients around the globe.
We spoke in detail with AstraZeneca to learn more about their operations in Uruguay:
Uruguay Smart Services: ¿What businesses do you develop from Uruguay?
AstraZeneca: The Company developed a Logistics operation for the distribution of imported finished goods to Brazil. The products transit via Uruguay after sea and air long hauls, are consolidated and shipped via truck to our Cotía plant, in the state of SP-Brazil.
Uruguay Smart Services: ¿How many people are involved in the operations?
AstraZeneca: AZ counts with strategic Support of its local branch and the process involves a number of customs agents, transport agents, forwarders, and the cargo terminal in Uruguay’s free Airport.
Uruguay Smart Services: ¿Why have you been nominated for this award?
AstraZeneca: This Project delivered very important results to AstraZeneca’s operations. The travel times are very stable, damages were reduced and the temperature excursions were reduced dramatically. For these reasons we were invited to submit the project in two categories: Distinction in Global Temperature Control and Best Distribution Network Strategy.
The Project was approved in the 1st round by the juries and on November 9th, in Stuttgart, Germany, the final presentation will be made in presence of the juries. On that night, throughout the ceremony, the winners will be officially revealed.
Uruguay Smart Services: ¿Why Uruguay, what advantages does it offer?
AstraZeneca: Uruguay offers a very favorable legislation for this type of operation, a political and legal stability as well as qualified workforce, with an open mentality to successfully implement projects such as these.
Uruguay Smart Services: ¿How did Uruguay come under AstraZeneca’s consideration?
AstraZeneca: The operational benefits (such as the free port laws or the free trade zone laws) are very well known in the different industrial sectors, especially in Brazil. The key aspect for AZ was to get acquainted with the country and its infrastructure, understanding the application of the laws and counting with deeply rooted support from our local branch.
Uruguay Smart Services: Moving forward ¿do you have any plans for expansion or development of other business lines?
AstraZeneca: In the near future we will be adding volumes for finished products imported to Uruguay and as well finished and bulk products sent to Argentina. The consolidation of this freight alongside containers with Brazil as final destination will allow AstraZeneca to implement long hauls by sea to destinations that, individually, do not count with volumes that justify this type of modality. In 2018 sending bulk freight to Brazil is also under consideration.
For Uruguay it is an honor to host this type of high-value Project that represent the highest international standards in terms of quality and efficiency.
Uruguay XXI is the government agency which works to internationalize the Uruguayan economy, promoting the country as a strategic location for productive investment and export growth.
Uruguay Smart Services is the sector brand and website developed by Uruguay XXI through the Global Services Program financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).
Montevideo, September 12th 2017
The arrival of Lufthansa Cargo’s new aircraft strengthens the transit of cargo between Uruguay, Europe and the rest of the world
MVD Free Airport, Carrasco International Airport’s business unit that operates a multimodal distribution center in Uruguay’s largest airport, received Lufthansa Cargo’s new and modern aircraft with greater functionalities and capacities.
The Boeing 777 Freighter, which arrived on Friday, September 8th, will be transporting cargo to MVD Free Airport weekly, in one of the two weekly frequencies that Lufthansa Cargo operates, substituting one of its current aircrafts, the MD11F (McDonnell Douglas). This upgrade takes place at a very special moment for the airport, currently incrementing its participation in the transit of pharmaceutical cargo proceeding from the largest markets in Europe, Asia and North America, with destination in some of the larger countries in the region.
“It is very important to strengthen the routes with Europe, and especially with Germany, one of the main origins of pharmaceutical products for South America”, said MVD Free Airport’s Managing Director, Bruno Guella.
“The new B777F operated by Aerologic (the name of the cargo Company resulting in the strategic Alliance between Lufthansa Cargo and DHL Express) is an aircraft with a very large capacity, which will increment the supply of warehouse space for all flights between Montevideo and Frankfurt”, mentioned Lufthansa’s manager for Uruguay Operations, Eduardo González.
“The capacity of the aircraft measured in tons is 25% larger than the previous MD11F and allows for the transportation of 27 containers in the main warehouse (AMJ) and 32 containers in the inferior warehouse (LD3)”, Gonzalez explained.
MVD Free Airport recently inaugurated its Pharma Hub, a regional distribution center unique in South America, focused on the provision of distribution services for global pharmaceutical companies in the region, and since inauguration has been selected by several leading pharma companies for the distribution of their products to the largest markets in South America.
Güella added that the main objective is to “continue attracting cargo flows that utilize Uruguay as a hub for the realization of value added services and the optimization of their supply chain to countries in the region.”
MVD Free Airport is part of Corporación America, the parent Company that also manages the concessions of the Carrasco International Airport and Punta Del Este Airport in Uruguay, alongside over 50 airports and 10 cargo terminals in 10 countries across 3 continents.
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc
Montreux, April 25th 2017
From April 25-27th, MVD Free Airport was present at the always inspiring Logipharma awards in Montreux, Switzerland. Alongside Uruguay’s National Logistics Institute and Uruguay XXI, Uruguay’s governmental agency for international promotions, as well as other players in Uruguay’s supply chain, MVD Free Airport presented Uruguay’s value proposition as a competitive gateway for business in South America, with a country-wide supply chain up to the most demanding global standards in the pharmaceutical industry.
Participating in workshops related to postponement and late customization and the establishment of hubs for a more efficient supply chain, MVD Free Airport introduced a different perspective with regards to the cultural, technological and quality challenges global organizations face in emerging markets while staying up-to-date with the latest global trends in supply chain management for pharma.
“Logipharma is always enticing for us, given we are able to identify global initiatives and challenges to later provide them with a regional context and convert them into a solution that can tackle those same challenges”, said Bruno Guella, CEO, one of the main encouragers behind Uruguay’s institutional presence at this years Logipharma. “We look forward to continue our participation in years to come”, he concluded.
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc
Montevideo, April 25th 2017
MVD Free Airport understands that its role in the supply chain of pharmaceutical products, both from a strictly logistics perspective but most importantly, from an ethical one. Amongst the modalities in which MVD Free Airport is helping pharmaceutical products get to destination safely and cost-efficiently is the recently implemented named-patient treatment format. These programs involve sending specific drugs pending approval in the local country to patients who have exhausted other treatment options.
The sensibility of the drugs to temperature and humidity conditions as well as the condition of the patients receiving those drugs make a total quality approach an absolute must, with every single contributor in the organization aware of his/her role in the provision of products safely and timely to the people that need them. MVD has hence assigned specific task teams and procedures for this type of cargo, given the low-volume, high criticality nature of the processes. It is currently distributing to every country in South America.
MVD Free Airport looks forward to helping organizations enhance their regional distribution cost-efficiently while sharing their main focus and mission, to improve the quality of life of their patients.
MVD Free Airport is a business unit of Corporación America, the largest airport operator in the world with a network of over 50 airports across 3 continents.
For more information, please contact us at info@dromoshosting.com/lacc