GAPL 1 – Green Lane

Relevance

Packaging qualification is a critical element of pharmaceutical quality and patient safety, ensuring medicinal products remain protected throughout storage, handling, and distribution. As supply chains become more global and complex, life sciences organisations face growing pressure to accelerate time-to-market, control costs, and improve efficiency while maintaining regulatory compliance. Yet current qualification practices often involve significant duplication of effort, with pharmaceutical companies repeating activities already performed by qualified packaging suppliers, while valuable supplier-generated performance and transport data remains underutilised due to concerns around standardisation, traceability, and regulatory acceptance.

GOAL

The Packaging Qualification Integration (PQI) project explores whether supplier-generated qualification data can be integrated into pharmaceutical packaging processes under appropriate quality and governance frameworks to reduce redundancy, shorten qualification timelines, and strengthen supply chain collaboration without compromising quality, compliance, or patient safety.
Through industry research, workflow analysis, stakeholder interviews, and the development of an industry opinion paper, the project seeks to assess the feasibility of this approach and stimulate informed discussion on more efficient, collaborative, and sustainable packaging qualification practices across the life sciences and logistics industries.

pharmaceutical-packaging-patient-safety-healthcare-supply-chain

Project Objectives

Pharma.Aero launched a series of projects on environmental sustainability in the life sciences and medtech logistics industry. The first project of the Green Air Pharma Logistics (GAPL) series focuses on defining a green lane to support pharma manufacturers, shippers, and freight forwarders in their sustainability consideration during the lane assessment process and towards their Scope 3 decarbonisation targets. Also, the project comes as an important support for air cargo stakeholders in pursuing green air logistics initiatives as part of their Scope 1 decarbonization efforts.

Pharma.Aero engages its global network of value chain stakeholders (shippers, airports, cargo handlers, airlines, solution providers, regulators etc.) to actively participate in all phases of the project.

The conclusion of this project would open up new areas for further pursuits.

Timeline

June - August



Preliminary Research & Industry Insights

July - September

October

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Framework Development & Qualification Mapping

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Industry Opinion Paper Publication

PROJECT
SUPPORT AND
COLLABORATION.

Pharma.Aero Board liaison: Brussels Airport
Project lead: Changi Airport Group
Project interviewees: Bayer, GSK, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Zoetis, Expeditors, Geodis, JAS, Kuehne+Nagel, PSA BDP, Rhenus Logistics, Air Canada, ANA Cargo, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, Lufthansa Cargo, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Cargo.
Project manager: Céline Crahay, 3CeL (external consultant)

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