All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) has urged the pharmaceutical companies across the country to team up and join with them to outsource services from AIOCD's cold chain management (CCM) enabled carrying and forwarding (C&F) agency situated in Indore to facilitate all the storage and distribution needs of the pharma companies. Through their CCM enabled services the AIOCD is offering a one stop solution for carrying out all the ground level needs which includes even the transportation of finished products straight from the first mile to the third mile which is the last leg of the distribution chain.

At present pharma manufacturers in the country have to relay on different C&F agents for storage, transportation, distribution and delivery of their products to the end-users. Even pharma companies face problem in delivering the finished products to the last mile which consist of stockist and retailers due to poor reachability and database. Through this services AIOCD offers to bridge this gap by providing all this services as a single entity reaching even the last mile using their strong database on over five thousand plus retailers and stockist members.

AIOCD which started the CCM enabled C&F agency in 2008 with one company as its client has already bagged three companies in total to whom they avail these services. According to J S Shinde, the national president of the country’s largest pharma trade body who initiated this project, “Setting up and maintaining CCM enabled facility is a costly affair especially if they have to do it only for some selected temperature controlled products. To tackle this we offer a very cost effective and economical solution through our service as it will be viable for them to adopt it as it is a one stop solution for all their distribution needs especially since we can ensure that their products will reach over five thousand plus members of AIOCD.”

The cost associated with AIOCD's CCM services is estimated to be minimal compared to the other services which are not integrated according to the needs of the companies making it more expensive. AIOCD has proposed to the industry that they will be providing the services according to the needs of the industry and have asked them to forward their suggestion that will help in better to implementation of their services to the industry.

According to Vaijnath Eknath Jaguste, vice-president, Maharashtra State Pharmacy Council (MSPC), “We had come up with this idea to ensure the availability of CCM enabled high quality products to the general public so that they can get access to life saving medicines and other drugs without any delay. AIOCD's C&F agency will act as a single entity through which the manufacturers and distributors will benefit the most as it will take care of distribution of all their products even to the last leg with the help of our strong five thousand plus members.”

Today the biggest concern of a pharma company is to ensure the availability of cold chain enabled pharma product to the last mile which consist of retailers, wholesalers and stockist who are situated at every nook and corner of the country. AIOCD through their C&F agency has assured that they can actually help in giving the companies an easy access to last mile by ensuring proper delivery of their products through their CCM enabled C&F agency using their strong networking skills.