The pandemic has shown how fragile our Supply Chains are. There have been several disruptions despite significant level of maturity in Supply Chains. However this pandemic is unprecedented in its manifestation and spread. While supply chains all over have still absorbed the shock huge losses notwithstanding, the pharma industry has been equally affected especially at a time when the healthcare is in utmost demand.
One of the reasons that pharma has been severely impacted is due to the nature of its supply chain complexities and high degree of variabitliy both from the raw material and the distribution standpoints. Pharma also to ride the next maturity curve in order to be able to match the exacting needs of the ongoing pandemic and its new mutations. Another major aspect is the shift to patient-centric( Remdisivir is a classic example) models and also impact on raw material supplies due to overdependence on China. Also critical will be the shift to more of new drug development streams.
Some key challenges are as enumerated:
a) Lack of strong distribution networking models to ensure timely supply to patients, hospitals and pharmacies.
b) Raw material uncertainty due to overdependence on China for API and other ingredients.
c) Shift to new drug development regimen will assert more agility demand on supply chains.
d) Poor adoption of technology such as cloud computing and leveraging agile platforms
e) Supply chain being end to end, the stringent monitoring of flow in the forward direction does not necessarily trigger flow of information in the reverse for velocity.
f) Complexities of ground logistics like refrigerated transportation and cold stroage warehousing
g) Echo effect on manufacturing impacting lot sizes, proliferation of skus and frequent sequence dancing leading to neutralising of cost effectiveness .
h) Change in global trade with redefining of the global freight movements adding to freight costs and uncertainty
Emprocon Consultants LLP 