NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

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NWBO has 275,000-sq-ft of storage in UK.

October 25, 2018 -- https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2018/10/eu-regulatory-roundup-uk-industry-sounds-alarm-ov

“There’s not enough cold-chain warehousing in the UK today to cover the stockpiles we’ve been asked to build,” Mike Thompson, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), said. Thompson also highlighted how the complete lack of cold-chain facilities at the border ports could affect the trade in biologics in the event that shipments get held up at customs.

The pharmaceutical industry has asked the government to support the building of more cold-chain capacity. The government responded this week with a tender aimed at organizations that have spare cold-chain storage, warehouses that can be converted to cold-chain capacity or the ability to build new facilities. It is questionable how much extra capacity can be made available by March. Sawer said it takes more than one year to build new cold-chain facilities.

While the cold-chain preparations look to be behind schedule, other activities are more advanced, in some cases to the detriment of the UK. AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline have spent more than £100 million ($129 million) to set up duplicate testing laboratories in continental Europe, Thompson said. The ABPI chief added that, “The jobs that have gone have gone for good.”

The government expects to spend a figure in “the low tens of millions of pounds” to add cold-chain capacity and says it is making money available to small companies that could be terminally damaged by the extra costs imposed by Brexit.

Despite these efforts, in an industry in which disruption to even 1% of products could cause deaths, there remain doubts about whether the UK will be prepared. Patients may need to take matters into their own hands.

“We’re not suggesting anyone needs to stockpile outside of the supply chain yet, but come January that might be a different picture,” Sawer said.