Posts categorized as 'Pharma and life sciences supply chain management'

Digital transformation in the life sciences supply chain – show me the data

BillDuBois

Digital transformation in the life sciences supply chain – Vas NarasimhanThe life sciences supply chain starts with a miracle

Is there a more challenging industry than life sciences? In a recent Forbes interview on why it’s so hard to bring tech into pharma, Vas Narasimhan, Chief Executive Officer of Novartis AG pointed out that only one in twenty drugs make it out of clinical trials.

One in twenty. A rate that hasn’t increased in over a decade. The only thing that has increased are the costs. Everything we talk about in supply chain starts with discovering that product you can market and sell. For those in consumer-packaged goods, it’s safe to say we’re fairly knowledgeable about our customers and target markets.

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Managing the healthcare supply chain for better patient outcomes

MikeMcAllister

LogiMed USA 2019 San Diego California, healthcare supply chainLogiMed USA 2019 panel discussion focuses on meeting expectations in the age of The Amazon Effect

Recently we had the opportunity to attend the only event that brings together the entire end-to-end healthcare supply chain, LogiMed USA 2019, in San Diego, California.

During the session entitled “Integrating better customer service strategies throughout the supply chain,” Kinaxis Vice President of Industry Strategy Raj Aiyar weighed in on the impact the right technology can have on the supply chain when it comes to meeting customer expectations in 2019 and beyond.

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Patient-centric networks at the heart of pharmaceutical supply chain management: Lessons from LogiPharma Europe 2018

Dr. MadhavDurbha

LogiPharma 18

In early April I attended the LogiPharma Europe 2018 conference in Montreux, Switzerland, an event that attracted more than 800 attendees, including practitioners and executives from pharma and medical device industries, along with software vendors and many service providers.

Here are some key takeaways from a content-rich, fun and exciting pharma supply chain conference.

1. Patient-centric networks are reshaping pharma supply chains

In a thought provoking presentation, Philippe Francois, global head of supply chain for Novartis, observed that while pharma companies have been talking about patient centricity for years, a typical pharma supply chain links the Active Pharma Ingredient (API) to manufacturing, distribution, retail/pharmacy, and finally to patient—with the patient always at the end of the chain!

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Supply chain agility, the disillusioned data scientist, Amazon effect, and other tales from LogiPharma US 2017

Dr. MadhavDurbha

LogiPharma - Pharmaceutical supply chainI was at the recent LogiPharma US conference for the pharmaceutical supply chain leaders. However, most of the insights and the stories I took away from the event are applicable to other industries as well. Here they are:

1. Personalized medicine demands supply chain agility: During a highly engaging panel discussion on “Building a patient-centric supply chain”, Kevin Cook, VP of North America supply chain at Sandoz (a division of Novartis) talked about the unique nature of the recently approved Kymriah, CAR-T cell therapy for children and young adults with certain types of Leukemia. The therapy showed an 83% remission rate in the patient population studied! In CAR-T cell therapy, every single dose of a treatment is completely personalized, as it involves extracting the patient’s immune cells, bringing them to a production facility, genetically modifying them, transporting them back (at minus 180oF!!), and then reinfusing the patient to fight the cancer cells. So, personalized medicine is here! With it comes several logistical challenges.

While Kymriah is the ultimate example of personalized therapy, there were several attending companies that provided therapies for rare diseases affecting a few hundred to a few thousand patients across the globe. In such a high mix, low volume portfolio, decisions such as how to allocate short supply to patients in case of contamination of a manufactured batch, can be lifesaving. Brad Pawlowski of Accenture said it right during his opening remarks – “Instead of executing one supply chain a thousand times, we should get ready to execute a thousand supply chains, one at a time”.

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Supply chain pain points: Life sciences

AlexaCheater

8 life sciences-specific challenges and how to overcome them

Life sciences supply chain

As I mentioned in the first blog of this supply chain pain points series, working in supply chain is tough business. Every company’s supply chain is unique, with its own set of challenges and solutions. But when it comes to life sciences supply chains, things just seem to be a whole lot more complicated.

Regulations, expirations and generic and brand name labels add a certain complexity to the mix not always seen in other industries. Branded pharmaceuticals tend to be high margin products, while generics are lower margin with a large volume of new product introductions (NPIs). With an extremely competitive landscape, mergers and acquisitions are common, leading to a multitude of disparate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, wreaking havoc on end-to-end supply chain visibility. Here are a few more obstacles those of you working supply chain in life sciences have to contend with.

Lack of robust sales and operations planning (S&OP) tools

Traditional S&OP tools don’t always account for the specific needs of the life sciences supply chain. S&OP in this space requires volume level planning at multiple hierarchies and provide mix level detail including material and capacity constraints at the site and SKU level.

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[Video] Sanofi Genzyme trends in pharmaceutical supply chains

MelissaClow

This blog is part of a video interview series. Check out the video below as well as links to other supply chain practitioner and Kinaxis executive interviews.

Merging two companies is seldom easy, but it’s even more difficult when their supply chains are highly dissimilar, says Jim Calarese, director of supply chain systems at Sanofi Genzyme.

The pharmaceutical company is the result of a takeover by Sanofi in 2001. The parent company’s supply chain was “plant-centric,” Calarese says. By contrast, Genzyme’s was completely end-to-end in nature. “Theirs was easier than ours.”

No pharmaceutical supply chain is without its challenges. Typically, supply chains are extended, lead times are long and a thicket of government regulations combine to present some steep challenges. Genzyme had diligently worked to have a total view of its supply chain as it developed and marketed drugs for rare diseases, multiple sclerosis, and oncology and immunology markets.

Sanofi Genzyme: Trends in Pharmaceutical Supply Chains

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The 5 ‘C’s’ for CMO Relationships in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

BillDuBois

Pharmaceutical supply chainI recently attended the LogiPharma conference in Princeton, NJ to hear a number of speakers give their thoughts on the state of the pharmaceutical supply chain. Of particular interest was a session on Contract Manufacturing Operations (CMO) relationships with Michael Daly, Director of Supply Chain for Valeant Pharmaceuticals. He talked about the 5 C’s for a CMO relationship in pharma.

There was agreement among many at the conference that pharma is a bit behind the high tech and automotive industries when it comes to supply chain efficiencies. To their credit, those same individuals acknowledged they were looking to other industries for best practices. High tech and automotive have long realized they could drive efficiencies up and costs down by not doing everything from scratch.

In many cases within high tech and automotive, the leaders in supplier relationships have developed interactive supplier engagements that allow for easy communication between customer and supplier. These improved supplier relationships have enabled the easy sharing of purchase order information, forecast requests and the ability to initiate collaborative reviews and adjustments. It’s become easier for the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to track supplier commitments and get alerts to gaps between request and commit dates, so action can be taken to avoid shortage conditions.

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State of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: Key Takeaways from LogiPharma US 2016

Dr. MadhavDurbha

Pharmaceutical Supply ChainPart of what makes my job very exciting is attending conferences. These events provide great opportunities to share, learn, network, and have fun. Earlier this week, I attended the LogiPharma conference, a wonderful event for supply chain professionals working in the pharmaceutical industry. Apart from taking part in numerous interactive presentations and roundtables, I had the opportunity to host a luncheon alongside my colleague, Bill Dubois, for a packed room of pharmaceutical industry executives and SCM practitioners.

All-in-all, it was a great validation of my point of view about where the pharma industry is with regards to its supply chain challenges, maturity and where it needs to go. In this blog, I want to share some key challenges faced by the pharma industry and pharmaceutical supply chains. And, in a future blog I will share some recommendations in light of these challenges:

1. Revenue pressures: With several blockbuster drug patents expiring (a.k.a. “patent cliff”) and with patent extensions harder to come by, large pharma companies are looking for opportunities to unlock additional value within their enterprises and across the value network as revenues remain under pressure.

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