CEVA Logistics, a world leading supply chain company, announced the official opening of the City of Pharma in Italy. The hub, which covers an area of 20,000 sq m, is strategically located in Stradella, in province of Pavia and is fully dedicated to the warehousing and handling of products destined for healthcare distribution channels.

The launch of City of Pharma highlights CEVA's industry-specific skills and was driven by the success of the previous opening of City of Books with customers that included leading publishers of educational, fiction and non-fiction books and magazines. By hosting companies from the same industry at one location, it enables CEVA to help customers respond to market fluctuations by providing complete visibility across the supply chain.

This new, innovative hub is at the heart of an integrated European logistics network, providing access not just to the whole of Italy, but to other markets throughout Europe.

We are one of the first logistics operators in Italy able to manage European logistics integration for healthcare products, such as vaccines, antibiotics and life-saving drugs, which require specialist storage and handling. The City of Pharma is a multi market hub, the center of a network that enables distribution throughout Italy and many other markets such as Eastern Europe and the Balkans, said Giuseppe Chiellino, Managing Director for CEVA in Italy. In the current economic climate, CEVA can be an important partner for pharmaceutical companies, by supporting them in designing more sophisticated logistics processes and reaching new markets in an even more efficient way."

The City of Pharma has been built in collaboration with Akno Business Parks, using state-of-the-art technological solutions and is equipped with the most innovative systems for temperature control, a critical factor for some pharmaceutical products which need to be kept at a certain temperature to maintain product integrity and efficacy. The City of Pharma provides flexible space options, with the area able to be extended by an additional 40,000 sq m in a short time, enabling CEVA to respond dynamically to future market demands.

The Stradella site was chosen as the location of the new hub because of its strategic position, being central to the national logistics traffic running north-south and east-west. This area represents the focal point of Italian logistics flows and the intersection of major Italian communication, rail and road routes, allowing CEVA to reach approximately 13,000 pharmacies, 500 hospitals and 400 wholesalers, with a total of about 350,000 shipments per year. With the opening of the City of Pharma, CEVA is now a true supply chain partner for pharmaceutical companies requiring international distribution, or those who are considering the geographic centralization of logistics flows as a supply chain strategy.

"The official opening of this warehouse reinforces CEVA's leading presence in the Italian market and commitment to providing unique solutions for the healthcare industry. We also continue to implement our strategy of creating specialized multi customer logistics hubs that deliver true value and considerable economies of scale, added Giuseppe Chiellino. Thanks to shared technologies, skills, rooms and, not least, transport, CEVA is able to meet the most sophisticated needs of its customers in this highly regulated and sophisticated market, while driving cost out of the supply chain."

The City of Pharma showcases CEVA's commitment to green warehousing as the hub has been equipped with a photovoltaic system that will produce 1,100 MWh per year, equivalent to the annual consumption of 400 homes, saving on average about 80 tons of CO2 emissions.