Supply chain partnership helps position Midwest as biologics distribution hub

Since its inception in 2006, Sentry BioPharma Services (Indianapolis), a provider of temperature-sensitive packaging solutions and supply chain management services to biopharma, has helped position the Midwest as a distribution hub. Thanks to a new partnership between Sentry and Vetter (Ravensburg, Germany), the region is hoping to claim biologics distribution as a key competency, as well.

The preferred partnership agreement was announced during the 2010 BIO International Conference, taking place this week in Chicago.

Vetter will fill early-stage, high-value biopharmaceuticals at its new 24,000-square-foot developmental facility in Skokie, IL, which is expected to open the beginning of October. Sentry will then label, package and ship the clinical supplies from its site in Indianapolis. Both companies say the collaboration will help streamline the path of study drugs from filling lab to clinic while safeguarding product integrity. Sentry CEO Jennifer Marcum adds that the companies’ central US locations will allow “rapid response to industry needs and accessibility to clients across North America.”

Last spring Marcum told Pharmaceutical Commerce that the company gets “a variety of requests for solutions that companies aren’t readily finding,” particularly for vaccines. The company was recently awarded a contract by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to store and distribute influenza vaccine for the US National Strategic Reserve.