Essential services crossing Serbia’s closed borders

Goal

To deliver urgently required temperature-controlled clinical medication to several hospitals in Serbia.

Challenge

With all commercial international traffic halted, our planning review resulted in limited options that avoided delays:

• The only remaining cargo flight was fully booked.
• Air cargo road transport would be a 4-day transit in an uncontrolled temperature truck.
• Driving into Serbia would require a 14-day quarantine of the driver.
• Necessary import staff from Serbia’s Ministry of Traffic were not initially reachable due to countrywide stay-at-home work restrictions.

Solution

In order to import these time-critical and temperature sensitive drugs, Marken chartered a Cessna from Zurich to Belgrade. The night prior to takeoff, we had not yet received landing permission. We informed the client but given the urgency of this shipment, we were asked to continue all efforts to try and Make it Happen.

Through collaborative efforts of Marken’s team members, we received the necessary permit from Serbia’s Ministry of Traffic just 3 hours before takeoff at Zurich. We successfully delivered multiple shipments to several hospitals throughout Belgrade.

Outcome

Hospitals and patients received their critical drug supply within the necessary time and temperature requirements.

About Marken

Marken is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPS and is a critical part of UPS Healthcare. With Polar Speed and Marken included, the UPS Healthcare division staffs 128 locations with 5,500 employees worldwide. Marken offers a state-of-the-art GMP-compliant depot network and logistic hubs for clinical drug product storage and distribution in 59 locations worldwide, while maintaining the leading position for Direct-to-Patient and Home Healthcare services, biological sample shipments and biological kit production. Marken’s dedicated 2,000+ staff members manage 154,000 drug product and biological sample shipments every month at all temperature ranges in more than 220 countries and territories and have orchestrated 14,000+ home healthcare visits. Additional services such as cell and gene supply chain services, ancillary material sourcing, storage and distribution, shipment lane verification and qualifications, as well as GDP, regulatory and compliance consultancy add to Marken’s unique position in the pharma and logistics industry.