Is COVID-19 the long overdue wake-up call for pharma supply chains?

Yes, but it's taking a very long time...

Published in GMP Review (GMP = Good Manufacturing Practice)

Amazingly, although I am kicked off LinkedIn for speaking out of turn, I am still on the Advisory Board of the EUs GMP Review.

I’ve been a regular contributor of articles for years, always eagerly read but falling on deaf ears!

Here is a share of a two-part article on COVID-19 and supply chains published in GMP Review last year, reprinted in Industrial Pharmacy.

The abstract to Part 1 is below:

“This paper describes how the exclusive focus on non-clinical and clinical data collection during the development of medicines and healthcare products results in supply chains that are riddled with risk and issues.

In the main, this is due to little awareness among actors in the development process of the seminal impact decisions taken here can have on the quality, cost and leadtime performance of the future commercial supply chain.

In the author’s experience, things will only begin to improve if product developers open their minds to a totally new model for product development – one that begins with its end-users – patients and healthcare professionals. The paper concludes with a call for strategic supply chain management being exercised from the inception of a development programme”

Here is the article is you’d like to dig deeper.