TraceLink Grows Market Position in DACH Region by 215% in 2017

Customers cite network connectivity, efficiency of partner onboarding, and seamless data exchange as significant differentiators

NORTH READING, Massachusetts, March 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TraceLink Inc., the World's Largest Track and Trace Network for connecting the life sciences supply chain and providing real-time information sharing for better patient outcomes, today announced 215 percent customer growth in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) for 2017.

Now serving over 40 customers in the region, TraceLink experienced a 138 percent growth in revenues from its German, Austrian and Swiss customers in 2017. To meet demand for its expanding DACH customer base, TraceLink has grown its European team by 169 percent, currently employing 22 native German-speaking team members. 

In order to counter the threat of falsified medicines entering the legal supply chain, companies who manufacture, sell or dispense medications in the European Union must comply with track and trace regulations outlined in the Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD), including serialization, compliance reporting and verification requirements, by February 2019. Characterized by a strong community of small and mid-sized life sciences organizations, in addition to several domestic large pharmaceutical companies, the DACH region represents a core area in the European market with a significant need for serialization and compliance with the EU FMD.

What DACH Customers and Partners Are Saying

Ortwin Kottwitz, CEO of Germany-based biotech and TraceLink customer, biosyn said: "We have customers and partners located all over the world and could not afford to lose time and resources by establishing individual point-to-point connections. After a thorough evaluation of solution providers, it was clear that TraceLink's network approach would deliver the scalability we needed while providing a simple and fast connection into the EU Hub."

Michael Unbehaun, manager engineering projects at R-Pharm Germany GmbH, a TraceLink partner, explained: "As a contract manufacturer, we need to be able to connect to multiple customers, managing and sharing data securely and efficiently. By accessing the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud we can facilitate EU FMD compliance for our customers who supply markets in Europe. The simplicity of the solution, together with our proactive approach, has helped our customers achieve compliance ahead of the regulatory deadline."

Boris Brunow of Switzerland-based contract packaging organization (CPO) Allpack, a TraceLink customer, said: "Our partnership with TraceLink has allowed us to manage and exchange serialization data more efficiently by eliminating outdated data transfer processes and simplifying the onboarding process for our customers. We evaluated potential partners over a two-year period, eventually selecting TraceLink for its network approach, as well as its specialist focus in the pharma sector."

"The EU FMD deadline is now less than a year away, requiring businesses to begin actively preparing for their serialization and regulatory requirements now. Over 190 companies are already serializing with TraceLink and with more than 265,000 partners on our network, we are well positioned to serve the growing number of companies of all sizes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland," said Shabbir Dahod, president and CEO, TraceLink.  "On an organizational level, we now have more employees dedicated to serving the DACH region than some of our competitors have for total number of employees, giving TraceLink a distinct advantage in our ability to service the specific needs of pharmaceutical and contract manufacturers across the region."

To support companies' compliance and serialization challenges in both the DACH region and across Europe, TraceLink is hosting FutureLink in Munich from June 5 ? 7, 2018. FutureLink is the industry's largest annual gathering of commercial and operational executives from the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. The conference provides distinct learning forums for a range of business leaders to develop strategies that address rapidly approaching compliance deadlines?and to discuss the analog-to-digital information-sharing transformation taking place in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Registration for FutureLink Munich is now open.

To learn more about meeting global pharmaceutical compliance deadlines and how to build a flexible serialization, track and trace, and reporting platform for the U.S., the EU, and other global regulations, then please register for an upcoming TraceLink EU workshop in 2018, or visit: www.tracelink.com.

About TraceLink

TraceLink is the World's Largest Track and Trace Network for connecting the Life Sciences supply chain and eliminating counterfeit prescription drugs from the global marketplace. Leading businesses trust the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud to deliver complete global connectivity, visibility and traceability of pharmaceuticals from ingredient to patient. A single point and click connection to the Life Sciences Cloud creates a supply chain control tower that delivers the information, insight and collaboration needed to improve performance and reduce risk across global supply, manufacturing and distribution operations. A winner of numerous industry awards including Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 (ranked number 149 in 2016), the Amazon AWS Global Start-Up Challenge Grand Prize, and the Edison Award for Innovation in Health Management, the Life Sciences Cloud is used by businesses across the globe to meet strategic goals in ensuring global compliance, fighting drug counterfeiting, improving on-time and in-full delivery, protecting product quality and reducing operational cost. For more information on TraceLink and our solutions, visit www.tracelink.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

TraceLink is funded by Goldman Sachs, FirstMark Capital, Volition Capital and F-Prime Capital.