With tighter budgets, regulatory challenges, and uncertainty from tariffs, pharmaceutical companies are turning to third-party logistics (3PL) suppliers to deliver efficiencies. Partnering with 3PL suppliers enables pharmaceutical operators to comply with regulations, scale without making large capital investments, and retain full visibility of their supply chain.
However, managing multiple 3PL suppliers responsible for transporting and distributing high-value medicines and medical devices to diverse markets can quickly become a logistical challenge. Working with providers who have a global presence and a global approach can do much to ease these pain points and ensure vital pharmaceutical materials reach their destination on time.
Why do pharma companies need 3PLs?
Timely delivery of materials remains a critical priority in the pharmaceutical industry, driven foremost by patient safety. Many medications are sensitive to temperature, have a limited shelf-life, and strict dosing schedules – essential to ensure efficacy. Prompt delivery is also imperative to guarantee regulatory compliance and avoid the costly consequences of spoiled shipments.
Unfortunately, the flow of these medical devices and drugs can be interrupted in many ways. In GlobalData’s State of the Biopharmaceutical Industry 2025 survey, pharma executives cited the six main reasons that lead to supply chain challenges. These are increased demand, manufacture discontinuation, shipping delays, cold storage, compliance with good manufacturing practices (GMP), and regulatory issues. These disruptions are often financially detrimental to pharma companies both directly and indirectly, through lost sales and revenue, as well as reputational damage. Crucially, it is the patients who often miss out.
Specialists in logistics are key to overcoming many of the challenges facing the industry. Pharma companies must explore every opportunity to optimise their operations, according to Alina Chesnokova, Vice-President of Global Commercialisation, Alloga and ICS at Cencora.
“The biggest topic for everyone is cost reduction and making sure that we do more with less,” she says. “The strongest trend that we are seeing is around continuous pursuit of efficiencies to enable extra savings. That is now accelerating with the amount of uncertainty around the US.”
She continues, “Currently pharma companies are working with thousands of providers across different areas. That is very challenging to manage all these complexities. So, the more one partner can provide them, the better.”
Optimism amid a challenging pharmaceutical landscape
Pharmaceutical companies are already having to operate in a leaner way as business costs are squeezed from many directions. As the world’s largest market for pharmaceuticals, policies and legislation in the US have far-reaching ramifications for the global industry. Business costs for pharma manufacturers are being restrained as pharma leaders prepare for changes in the US.
Policy changes initiated by new US administration have already affected global supply chains. Executives in the pharmaceutical industry have expressed concerns that retaliatory tariffs could not only raise costs, but also limit market access and impede growth. There have even been reported cases of stockpiling products as a mitigation tactic.
In addition, personalized and precision medicine is an emerging trend that will have a significant impact on the pharma industry.
“Many product areas are being more and more saturated, so the whole pipeline shifts from blockbuster drugs to more specialty products,” says Chesnokova. “But specialty products are by definition a very small volume, very niche products that drives extra complexity”
“Therefore, they need to be more efficient in how they manage the whole supply chain, because each product has unique handling requirements and more complex channel strategy.”
Reducing cost pressures with 3PL partners
Having specialists in logistics as integral partners can be part of an effective strategy for pharma companies to alleviate cost pressures. 3PLs can unlock cost savings that their customers might find harder to achieve. This can be achieved by taking responsibility for warehousing, packing and labelling, order management, distribution, freight audit, and transportation trend management of pharma materials.
Chesnokova says she often receives requests from clients for ways to generate additional savings, which her company can attain through “intense price negotiations”. 3PLs such as Alloga and ICS can also increase supply chain efficiencies by closely aligning with customers’ business goals and delivering tailored logistics. The aim is to be long-term partners for manufacturers and brand owners.
A main driver of supply chain disruption is increased demand, which 3PLs can help mitigate through the large-scale storage of seasonal products in central locations. This allows for the continuous distribution of medicines that experience demand fluctuations throughout the year such as flu vaccines.
Global 3PL delivered by Alloga and ICS
Going forward, the Alloga and ICS brands are combining their strengths to deliver 3PL services together under the Cencora banner. By bridging expertise across both side of the Atlantic, the two companies aim to serve the pharma industry more efficiently and effectively than before.
With the scale of its distribution network, and one million square feet of secure warehouse space across three strategic locations, ICS has the storage capacity to manage supply chain demands effectively across the US. Primarily focused on suppling emerging biotechs, the company has specialist capabilities and complex channel strategies. Alloga, on the other hand, has a network of local and regional secure warehouses in Europe where it has worked as a logistics specialist with large pharma companies and high-volume products.
By combining to deliver 3PL together, Alloga and ICS can serve companies across the pharma development cycle, from preclinical to commercial. And with expertise in two major pharma markets, their upgraded 3PL service can help companies in Europe and the US reach new customers.
“We are the only pharma-focused 3PL provider that operates transatlantically,” explains Chesnokova. “So, if you have product across US or Europe and you want to launch in other parts of the world, at Cencora we have this global coverage that is very focused on pharma and we have all these adjacent services that our logistics competitors just don’t have.”
Alongside the capabilities of Alloga and ICS, Cencora’s stable of companies includes World Courier, a global logistics provider that can develop bespoke solutions for product delivery beyond the US and Europe. The unification of Alloga and ICS into one 3PL solution further consolidates Cencora’s reputation as the leading pharma logistics provider in the space, a company with a solution for each step on the supply chain.
Remaining optimistic amid tight budgets, geopolitical uncertainty and wavering pricing structures could prove taxing for pharma executives. However, sourcing the right logistics partners is essential to ensure critical materials are delivered on schedule.
“When a company is selecting the partner across multiple services, they want their partner to be top-class, the best kind of large company that is stable and that they can trust,” says Chesnokova. “Being part of Cencora provides this reassurance to those clients.”
To learn more about global 3PL delivered by ICS and Alloga, download the free whitepaper below.
