Despite patent cliffs and decreases in research funding, global pharmaceutical sales are forecasted to reach $1.3 trillion by 2018, impacted largely by emerging markets. In fact, by 2018, pharmerging countries—including China, India, Brazil, Russia and Mexico—are expected to account for nearly 50 percent of absolute growth in drug spending.

Pharmerging countries present new opportunities for big pharma, however demand growth for protection of critical payloads in these emerging markets—combined with increasing global regulatory requirements and cost pressures—place a substantial emphasis on the need for high-performance temperature-controlled, cost effective, reliable and sustainable packaging.

Expanding into emerging markets can be especially challenging when temperature-sensitive and high-value payloads are involved. Manufacturers and marketers with a global network and experience bringing temperature-sensitive shipments into those markets can assist companies in establishing integrity in emerging markets. These providers help organizations traverse the extreme and unsophisticated shipping lanes that often come with pharmerging countries. They can also assist with planning for situations that put critical payloads at higher risk for temperature excursion, including extended time in customs or on an airport tarmac.

Preventing temperature excursion is not the only consideration big pharma and biotech companies look to accomplish while deciding on their “best fit” temperature-controlled packaging solutions for emerging markets. Other important priorities include reducing overall costs, complying with more stringent good manufacturing practice (GMP) and good distribution practice (GDP) guidelines and regulations and the ability to track and trace high value, critical payloads.

Today’s cold chain lanes aren’t contained to single countries or even continents. Having a comprehensive infrastructure in place, which provides global coverage, is essential to managing these types of payloads, eliminating the risk of temperature excursions and supporting the recovery of those assets for reuse.

Kevin Lawler is the vice president of sales at Pelican BioThermal. With over 25 years of sales leadership experience, Kevin has a strong history in building and leading sales organizations capable of producing strong and predictable growth.