Lufthansa and DHL form specialised transport joint venture
Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Deutsche Post AG's DHL DanzasAir & Ocean said they set up a joint venture to provide 'temperature controlled' transport solutions for the life science industry.
The new Florida-based company, called LifeConEx, will help life science companies such as pharmaceuticals prevent damage to temperature-sensitiveproducts, the companies said.
LifeConEx will begin operating on April 1 and, according to Lufthansa and DHL, it will be the only firm of its kind.
Its potential customer base include pharmaceutical, biotech and health care companies.
DPWN Press Release
First global Logistics Service Center for Life Sciences
DHL Danzas Air & Ocean, the world's leading air and ocean freight provider and part of Deutsche Post World Net, and Lufthansa Cargo, the largest airfreight company on the international market, founded the new joint-venture company LifeConEx. Based in Miramar, Florida, the company will start on April 1, 2005 and will be the only industry-specific provider of integrated end-to-end temperature controlled transportation solutions for the Life Science Industry.
DHL Danzas Air & Ocean and Lufthansa Cargo are migrating their Life Sciences competence in temperature-controlled logistics into the new company LifeConEx. With LifeConEx, the new company will be in a position to offer a new level of service standards to leading companies of the Life Sciences industry that integrates logistics solutions for their primary distribution to numerous destinations around the world, focusing on temperature-controlled end-to-end transportation along the supply chain.
Customers of the life sciences industry cover pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare services including medical devices. They will benefit considerably from the seamless end-to-end logistics service. The integration of standardized processes and systems provided by the parent companies of LifeConEx will result in a higher rank of delivery performance and reduction of preventable service failures for temperature-sensitive products. The joint venture with a dedicated team of specialists will improve order to deliver cycle times and help customers to reduce the total supply chain costs.
Primary distribution of the life sciences industry represents shipments of raw materials to plant sites, inter-company shipments of finished goods or works in progress, and also finished goods to affiliate sites. LifeConEx will provide dedicated resources and tools for process-oriented shipment management, consultative support, expertise for packaging, and live monitoring. A unique IT platform will warrant more visibility and proactive control over logistics events and milestones that are critical to temperature sensitive products transportation.
Renato Chiavi, COO of DHL Danzas Air & Ocean and Chairman of LifeConEx, said: "It is the first company to virtually integrate the operating standards of the airline, ground handling and freight forwarding service providers to create more value for shippers of life sciences products." The integrated approach model will reduce many of the hand-over risks and improve the physical handling quality, data integrity and overall supply chain processes. LifeConEx will be an airline carrier-neutral provider of air forwarding services using DHL Danzas Air & Ocean systems and services. The new company will initially be operating from the key markets US and Europe.
Dr. Andreas Otto, member of the Executive Board for Marketing and Sales at Lufthansa Cargo and Vice Chairman of LifeConEx, commented: "We are aiming to become the most recognized brand as a trusted and premium service provider for the life sciences industry. We want to be the first choice for customers when they ship temperature-controlled products."
The Management of LifeConEx will be led by Robert Krautheim as CEO (coming from DHL Danzas Air & Ocean) and Michael Vorwerk as COO (coming from Lufthansa Cargo).
