GSK Pharmaceuticals to launch vaccine distribution from Uruguay to Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The British pharmaceutical company GSK will launch in the next two months, a regional vaccine distribution center for Latin America that will operate from Uruguay, announced a joint communiqué between the governments of Luis Lacalle Pou and Boris Johnson after their meeting on Monday in London.

The operations will be based at Montevideo’s Carrasco Airport, specifically at the Latin America Cargo City facilities, an airport free-zone.

The logistics center “will be inaugurated in the next two months and will distribute more than 12 million vaccines a year in six South American countries,” said the joint statement released Tuesday, May 24, by the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry.

The statement added that Boris Johnson and Luis Lacalle Pou “welcomed GSK’s announcement of opening one of its three new regional vaccine distribution centers in Uruguay”.

The decision to set up the center was announced in September last year, but now it has a date. The company aims to optimize costs and reduce delivery times by employing a hub where it will concentrate the products manufactured in its different plants in Europe.

According to a statement published by the foreign trade promotion office Uruguay XXI on the occasion of the announcement of the facility, the company aims to supply the region with drugs for the treatment of asthma, COPD, allergic rhinitis, epilepsy, and HIV.

The joint statement on the bilateral meeting also noted that the British Prime Minister highlighted Uruguay’s initiative to launch a sovereign bond linked to sustainability goals during the meeting. The statement added that the UK “encouraged exploring the cross-issuance of this bond in London to access the ample global capital funds present in the UK financial system”.

The Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, said on Monday in London that the government has already held meetings with investors in New York and that this week, they will hold talks with potentially interested parties in the United Kingdom and Paris. She also ratified that climate goals will be tied to reducing greenhouse gases and preserving native forests.

On the trade front, the governments stated that they would work on “collaboration to reduce barriers for business and strengthen multilateral cooperation”.

With information from Bloomberg Línea