EU cri­sis pre­pared­ness is strength­ened in Fin­land – THL launch­es the imple­men­ta­tion of OC Logis­tics

Last year, the Finnish com­pa­ny OneClin­ic signed an agree­ment with the Finnish Nation­al Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare (THL) to sup­ply the OC Logis­tics sys­tem for use by THL’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal whole­sale trade. The sys­tem will take the pro­cure­ment, stor­age and dis­tri­b­u­tion of vac­cines and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal whole­sale trade to a new lev­el. The same sys­tem will also be used to pre­pare for threat and cri­sis sit­u­a­tions in the rescEU project.

One of the key tasks of THL’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal whole­sale trade is to pro­cure and dis­trib­ute vac­cines includ­ed in the nation­al vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme. In recent years, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal whole­sale trade’s oper­a­tions have con­tin­u­ous­ly expand­ed and diver­si­fied. Toni Relander, Direc­tor of Whole­sale Trade, says that the scope of tasks has expand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the trade became respon­si­ble for the pro­cure­ment and stor­age of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in the emer­gency stocks includ­ed in the rescEU project.

Imple­men­ta­tion at the begin­ning of the year

The OC Logis­tics sys­tem is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing accep­tance test­ing and will be imple­ment­ed ear­ly next year.

“This has been a large project, even on our scale,” says Veli-Mat­ti Pietilä, CEO of OneClin­ic. “Over a hun­dred thou­sand orders and ware­house trans­ac­tions are processed through OC Logis­tics annu­al­ly, but the secu­ri­ty clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the project by the Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare and the spe­cial fea­tures relat­ed to the emer­gency stor­age raised the project’s require­ments to a new lev­el.”

The geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion has changed atti­tude towards the stor­age and logis­tics of med­ical prod­ucts through­out Europe. In 2020, the pan­dem­ic took many par­ties respon­si­ble for the dis­tri­b­u­tion of vac­cines and pro­tec­tive equip­ment by sur­prise. “We can no longer afford that,” Pietilä reminds us. “As a bor­der neigh­bour to Rus­sia, we have a spe­cial posi­tion in many ways. Europe, and espe­cial­ly Swe­den, val­ues ​​our resilience in excep­tion­al sit­u­a­tions. The solu­tions used and imple­ment­ed here are close­ly mon­i­tored.”

EU-lev­el pre­pared­ness is strength­ened

The rescEU project includes com­mon EU emer­gency stock­piles across Europe. The project aims to strength­en the EU’s pre­pared­ness to respond to large-scale dis­as­ters, threats, and crises. The new rescEU stock­pile estab­lished in Fin­land focus­es on vac­cines, med­i­cines, med­ical sup­plies, and equip­ment essen­tial for respond­ing to chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal, radi­o­log­i­cal, and nuclear threats.

“RescEU emer­gency stock­pil­ing requires a new way of think­ing from us,” says Toni Relander from the Finnish Insti­tute for Health and Wel­fare.

“OC Logis­tics will play a sig­nif­i­cant role in prepar­ing for and man­ag­ing cri­sis sit­u­a­tions,” says Veli-Mat­ti Pietilä. “And this does not only apply to Fin­land; it is an EU-wide issue.”

Con­tact per­son

Veli-Mat­ti Pietilä

CEO, One Clin­ic

veli-matti.pietila@oneclinic.fi

Source: One Clin­ic