transportationreport
Valeant. Two weeks earlier, Valeant’s
customer service manager had
received a call from the Hackensack
(N.J.) University Medical Center
requesting an emergency shipment
of Virazole for three infants already
hospitalized with RSV and a fourth
patient on the way. Kenco got the
dispatch from Valeant just as it was
closing for the day at 5 p.m. Eastern
time. Kenco contacted a UPS driver
who had just left the Chattanooga
facility and requested that he return
to accept the emergency shipment.
In the meantime, Kenco’s staff com-
pleted all the necessary paperwork.
The shipment was delivered to the hospital at 8 a.m. the next day, in time for the
patients’ next treatment.
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Urgent business
For Valeant and Kenco—which has been
Valeant’s exclusive domestic and international logistics partner since 2004—the
dispatches were two more success stories
in a sub-sector of supply chain management where failure is not an option.
Depending on the patient’s condition and
the circumstances surrounding the treatment, getting a drug to its intended destination on time can spell the difference
between life and death.
In the cases of the infants in Wisconsin
and New Jersey, it is impossible to determine if their lives would have been at risk
had the medication not arrived in time,
according to Asha Soto, Valeant’s vice
president, supply chain operations. But
Soto says she is aware of one case, an
emergency shipment of Virazole bound
for Sao Paulo, Brazil, where its delivery to
the local hospital within 24 hours of the
order saved the life of a one-year-old who
had contracted RSV.
Although the details of each case vary,
Valeant and Kenco follow essentially the
same procedure whenever Valeant
receives a call from a hospital requesting
an emergency shipment. (In urgent cases,
hospitals contact Valeant directly instead
of going through Valeant’s network of
wholesalers.) As soon as Valeant processes
the order, it contacts Kenco. The third
party then makes transportation arrangements with its own network of delivery
companies, which range from giants like
FedEx Corp. and UPS to a highly regarded Chattanooga-based delivery company
called Network Courier. Kenco handles all
logistics issues that culminate in final
delivery—almost always to a hospital—
and the service operates on a 24/7 basis.
In most cases, domestic shipments are
delivered within eight hours of an order’s
being placed, regardless of where in the
United States they’re bound.
Although Valeant and Kenco have
worked together for six years now, the current arrangement is a relatively new one.
Until 2006, Valeant managed a nationwide
emergency drop-shipping program from a
