The facility, located in Werne, western Germany, will house some 15,800sqm of warehouse space, sufficient for up to 19,000 pallets, when fully operational in August next year.
CEO Bill Wedlake, CEO NextPharma agreed and said that the emergence of the high-tech drug market was a key driver for development of the new facility.
“We are aware that more and more products in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry require special handling and storage and we are excited at the prospect of being able to meet our customers’ requirements to an even higher standard through this state of the art facility.”
To this end the Werne site, which will employ a staff of 40 people, will have under floor heating, hot-air blowers and air conditioning to ensure drugs are kept at the appropriate temperature prior to distribution.
NextPharma added that it will seek both wholesaler authorization and a manufacturing license for manual re-packaging, bundling and labeling of secondary packaging for pharmaceutical products.
Location, location, location
Werene is situated between Munster and Dortmund, near the region’s major motorway, the A1, which makes it “a fantastic new addition to the NextPharma CLS network," according to company managing director Jost Bunse.
Specifically, the town is easy to access from NextPharma’s existing cold-chain distribution centres in Waltrop and Bielefeld.
The new facility, in addition to the two existing German units and other in Stockerau, Austria and Turbenthal, Switzerland, provides NextPharma with a significant European cold-chain storage and distribution reach.