Cem Kolak, founder and managing director of BL Turkey, the only Turkish Third Party Logistics (3PL) firm 100 percent dedicated to the biopharmaceutical and life sciences sectors, leverages his pioneering experience to provide insights into the development of this niche in Turkey, while sharing with us his ambitions for BL Turkey moving forward and the personal reasons behind his remarkable commitment to make a difference in the patients’ lives.   Could you introduce yourself and provide insights into the reasons that led you to set up your own 3PL company specialized in the healthcare and life sciences sector? Overall, I have been working in the life sciences logistics industry for more than a decade. Prior to setting up BL Turkey, I actually spearheaded the development of a life sciences courier division on behalf of a domestic logistics company, after the latter had forged a partnership with a global life sciences courier company. This experience provided me with great insights into the stringent requirements and processes of clinical trials and life sciences logistics, a niche that was completely new to Turkey at that time, while I eventually represented Marken in Turkey for almost ten years. Setting up this life sciences division moreover emerged as a true entrepreneurial endeavor, and I was personally fulfilling, supervising, and monitoring our operations in the early days of that life sciences division. For example, I would accompany our drivers and deliver in person our packages to hospitals, supervise the packaging and labelling of samples at our warehouse or take care of the custom clearance procedures by myself.

Our success rate for on time and on site delivery shall never dive under 99 percent