Sri Lankan patients to receive safer and more available medications with new DHL Life Sciences facility

• Temperature-controlled warehouse to improve availability of, and minimize damages to drug supplies in Sri Lanka's hospitals and clinics
• Facility will label, bundle, and distribute pharmaceutical goods in compliance with global Good Distribution Practice standards

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA - Media OutReach - 17 March 2017 -DHL Global Forwarding, the leading international provider of air, sea and road freight services, today launched the first-of-its-kind Life Sciences facility in Colombo designed to ensure world-class product safety and availability for Sri Lanka's drug manufacturers and importers.

Opening of New DHL Life Sciences & Healthcare Facility in Sri Lanka

With automated temperature monitors covering its entire campus including a cool-room chilled to 2-8 °C, the new facility offers Sri Lankan pharmaceutical companies a highly controlled environment for medication storage and distribution, one that complies fully with global Good Distribution Practice standards for medicinal products.

"The new Life Sciences facility gives Sri Lankan pharma companies a chance to tackle product risk at every point of the storage and distribution process, while also dramatically improving the efficiency of how they prepare their products to go to market," said Thomas Tieber, CEO, DHL Global Forwarding ASEAN and South Asia. "That means both local and overseas drug manufacturers can deliver higher product volumes in less time and with greater assurance of quality -- a powerful value proposition for those seeking to establish themselves as suppliers of choice in Sri Lanka's increasingly privatized healthcare market[1]."

"With this latest facility in Sri Lanka, we hope to provide the life sciences and healthcare sector with the top-tier infrastructure that they need to service the burgeoning domestic demand for pharmaceutical goods, and also establish them as leaders in drug safety and availability on the world stage."

Alongside storage and domestic distribution, the Life Sciences facility also offers a range of value-added services including labelling, price-marking and bundling of pharmaceutical finished goods.

"Sri Lanka's medical and pharmaceutical imports have skyrocketed in recent years to hit US$460m in 2015[2], yet hospitals and clinics still face persistent quality-control issues associated with unregulated temperature, inconsistent inventory, and delayed distribution of medications[3] -- all of which put patients' lives at risk," said Najeeb-ur Rahman, Country Manager, DHL Global Forwarding Sri Lanka. "As Sri Lanka's healthcare sector faces the twofold pressures of an ageing population and rising incidence of chronic diseases[4], both drug manufacturers and hospitals will need safe, reliable and efficient supply chain infrastructure to keep up with citizens' needs."

"The new Colombo Life Sciences facility aims to streamline the entire process so that all parties -- from producer to patient -- can have the utmost trust in the integrity of their medications, backed up by full adherence to the Good Distribution Practice standards that underpin the world's best medical supply chains."

DHL -- The logistics company for the world

DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. Our DHL family of divisions offer an unrivalled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With about 350,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global trade flows. With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences and healthcare, energy, automotive and retail, a proven commitment to corporate responsibility and an unrivalled presence in developing markets, DHL is decisively positioned as "The logistics company for the world".

DHL is part of Deutsche Post DHL Group. The Group generated revenues of more than 57 billion euros in 2016.