Changi Airport Group and several partner companies – all of which have received IATA’s CEIV certification for pharmaceutical handling – signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to form the Pharma@Changi initiative, pledging to cooperate in improving pharma transport standards and promoting Singapore Changi Airport as a pharma hub.

Other companies that signed the MOU are Bollore Logistics, CEVA logistics Singapore, DHL Global Forwarding, dnata Singapore, Expeditors Singapore, Global Airfreight International, SATS, Schenker Singapore and Singapore Airlines Cargo. Through the initiative, the groups making up the air cargo community plan to actively seek out and adopt new technologies to uphold a cool-chain network, said Singapore Airlines Cargo’s president Chin Yau Seng.

At Changi Airport, which handled 1.97 million tonnes of cargo in 2016, the freight center includes more than 300,000 square meters of temperature-controlled facilities. Through August of this year, the airport handled more than 15,500 tonnes of pharmaceutical cargo, according to the airport group’s managing director for air hub development Lim Ching Kiat.