Clinical trial logistics and distribution
For over 35 years, Thermo Fisher Scientific has supported the clinical trial supply, distribution, and logistics needs of pharmaceutical and biotechnology sponsors globally. Our 30 purpose-built GMP/GDP-compliant facilities, coupled with over 40 partner depots spread across five continents, guarantee regulatory-compliant movement, management, and delivery of supplies to more than 150 countries across diverse therapeutic areas.
Within our expertise, our logistics specialists manage the storage and distribution of labeled or packaged ambient and cold chain clinical trial materials, investigational medicinal products, comparator medicinal products, and placebos. We offer comprehensive import/export services, including an add-on Importer of Record (IOR) capability in over 24 countries, alongside efficient returns and destruction management throughout our network.
Total transportation management of clinical trial supplies
Simplifying logistics to ensure that products reach their destinations on time, in full, and at the right temperature.
Our services for total transportation management include:
- Access to a portfolio of qualified suppliers
- Route optimization to ensure the most efficient transportation methods to meet your objectives
- Customs and regulatory guidance and facilitation to mitigate the risk of costly delays
- Dispatch services to coordinate all aspects of scheduling and documentation
- Logistics management including returns management, a shipper reuse program, and shipment arrangement
- Data-objective monitoring and reporting of all shipments for quick decision-making
- Consolidated billing to simplify supplier invoice management
Clinical trial logistics tracking support
Ensuring the prompt and complete delivery of clinical trial materials. Our committed teams offer global assistance, actively tracking and resolving any shipment delays.
- Shipment tracking queries
- Damaged or incorrect shipments
- Customs clearance issues
- Late or lost shipments
- Temperature excursion monitoring and reporting
- Real-time Track and Trace platform
- TracePro® general tracking
Cold chain logistics and management
Providing end-to-end cold and ultra-cold supply chain solutions, guaranteeing your materials are stored properly and delivered on time and at temperature.
- Controlled temperature storage, packaging, labeling, and distribution ranging from ambient to cryogenic temperatures
- Environmentally friendly reusable shipper program
- Lane validation for transferring from clinical to commercial
- Continuous monitoring solutions for all shipments
Direct-to-patient services
Enhancing accessibility, convenience, and patient compliance, while minimizing logistical challenges and time constraints.
- Multiple options for flexibility: Depot to patient, clinical site to patient, pharmacy to patient
- Ability to ship to 50+ key countries approved and vetted by our regulatory experts
- Options for shipping investigational medicinal products (IMP) and non-IMP items directly to the patient’s home (including sourcing and managing supportive medications and ancillaries)
- Continuous monitoring, notifications, and communication in multiple languages to patients and clinical site/home nursing providers as required
- Compliant with applicable data privacy laws and regulations
- Shipment coordination with patients, clinical site, and home healthcare nurse (if applicable)
- Solutions for IRT and non-IRT driven studies
Importer of Record (IOR) services
Managing end-to-end supply chains and providing Importer of Record (IOR) services as an additional offering in more than 24 countries.
The IOR is a legal entity responsible for:
- Ensuring the imported goods comply with local laws
- Filing a completed duty entry form and associated documents
- Paying the assessed import duties and other taxes on those goods
- Thermo Fisher Scientific is fully vetted and compliant with regional and country-specific laws, providing Importer of Record (IOR) services worldwide
European value-added tax (VAT) reclaim service
Streamlining Importer of Record (IOR) and VAT reclaim requirements by combining these services into one contract, along with providing consolidated invoicing
- Importer of Record (IOR)
- Customs clearance/brokerage services
- Total transport management (TTM)
- Import VAT management and payments
- Duty on import
- Management of fiscal import reporting
Global Gateway portal
The Global Gateway portal provides real-time data transparency, anytime and anywhere. It makes accessing inventory and distribution information about clinical trial supplies easy and fast for biotech and pharma sponsors.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Total Transportation Management manages the complex supply chain processes required to move all types of life science shipments both domestically and internationally. Logistics specialists and our teams of in‑country experts can mitigate risk across your supply chain by simplifying the complexity associated with transportation planning and monitoring, thus optimizing both transportation performance and efficiency.
For the couriers already integrated, you will have access to our proprietary Real-Time Track and Trace platform where you get instant location and temperature access.
Transportation services include access to our Global Logistics Help Desk team. If an exception occurs to the shipment, the Help Desk will still step in to determine the intervention, communicate updates, and resolve the exception.
We support IOR and custom clearance for only clinical trial projects. We help facilitate customs clearance, but we are not a broker. However, we have preferred brokers around the globe. We also cannot provide paperwork on the client's behalf, but we can provide guidance on what paperwork is required for specific areas of the world. IOR services are available in select regions. These services can only be provided when materials are stored in one of our depots in support of a project. We are not able to offer IOR services for transportation-only shipments.
We select the courier based on their performance, optimize lane cost, and ratio of quality events per shipment.
Yes, we offer a portfolio of qualified industry leading solutions for ultra-cold shipping and monitoring services including in-house LN2 shipping fleet and passive and real-time data loggers.
Clinical trial logistics and distribution sites
Global network of sites to support both local and global clinical trial supply management.
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Transportation and Warehousing Terms and Conditions
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