UPS is to open its first dedicated healthcare facility in Dublin in late 2023. It will offer nearly 6,000sq m of space to support Ireland’s pharmaceutical and medical device industries in delivering next generation biologics, critical vaccines and vital healthcare equipment to patients around the world. The facility will create 30 jobs initially, and comes at a time when 80% of pharmaceutical drugs in the EU require cold-chain logistics and transportation. More than 50% of all new drugs in the global pharmaceutical pipeline are cutting edge biomedical drugs – such as vaccines – that tend to be temperature-sensitive.
Recently appointed UPS Healthcare vice president for international sales, Cathy O’Brien, said: “This is a significant investment by UPS in Ireland and a demonstration of our commitment to enabling truly global healthcare supply chains.
“Our new facility supports the quality and regulatory needs of manufacturers, many of whom are providing critical upstream activity, and we provide them with resiliency and scale. UPS Healthcare is now offering the first truly dedicated freight, small parcel and logistics offering in Ireland, including cold chain management services. Ireland is a world leader in research, biologics and healthcare innovation, and we are confident that our clinical to commercial service offering will drive value for the Irish healthcare and economic ecosystem in the years to come.”
UPS recently announced its planned acquisition of the Bomi Group, which has temperature-controlled facilities in 14 countries in Europe and Latin America, adding nearly 3,000 highly skilled team members. With the approved completion of this acquisition by 2023, UPS Healthcare will have more than doubled the footprint of its facilities since 2020.
UPS is also investing in UPS Premier, a technology-enabled express delivery service, that upgrades small packages with advanced sensor technology as well as ensuring a priority lane in UPS’s global network. Earlier this year, UPS Healthcare expanded its specialized temperature-controlled fleet across Benelux and Italy, adding to existing cold chain transport services in the UK, Italy, Hungary, and Poland.