Overcoming Obstacles That Face The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain - QA

Supply chain and logistics is often a subject most people take for granted. Can you provide us with an update on some of the obstacles facing today’s supply chain?

Yes, it’s true, not only with supply chain typically, taken for granted but it was also considered a bit of a necessary evil. Every pharma company had a fairly similar in-sourced structure and few, if any, were paying much attention to it.

That’s thankfully changed quite a bit over the last several years and, as I see it, there are probably three major obstacles that are here now and, I think, will continue to be here.

Those are increased regulatory oversights, issues around control and ultimately, focus. Regulatory pressures are an obstacle that saves companies in this industry every day. Governments around the world are trying to tighten control of the supply chain.

Regulations such as California’s 2015 pedigree mandate and the EU’s Falsified Medicines Directive are setting the stage really for the expanded use of serialization. As these are rapidly approaching companies must begin to plan and prepare for what it’s going to take to navigate those issues.

Control is another obstacle we see time and again in the supply chain. Whether companies have shared facilities, consolidated shipping, or integrated procurement sourcing, the ability to add or shed products or even business units while maintaining secure and seamless business execution is absolutely essential.

That ultimately brings us to focus. In today’s world companies should really be focused on core competencies and revenue producing of that. Instead of having to deal with the complexities of the supply chain, companies need to focus on revenue and reinvest capital back into the business.