Pharmaceutical product development and the convoluted, and dangerous, supply chain it creates

...you could not make it up!

Time for more education on the pharmaceutical supply chain

Pharma doesn’t follow other industries.

In most industries, supply chains are created as part of new product development program. The developers work together, consulting product end-users, producers, and distributors to ensure the physical supply chain they put together can deliver what is required by consumers.

For reasons we shall go into later, pharmaceutical new product development does not follow the customary approach of other industries. Rather than beginning with a consumer and working backwards, the process begins with a patented compound and moves forwards.

This results in supply chains ‘evolving’ with the passage of time, rather than being designed and planned with the consumer in mind.

This is how it works, taking the most straight forward example of small molecule products.

The ‘R’ of R&D (Discovery Research) discovers (or finds) molecules using advanced technologies such as molecular modelling. Once the patent has been secured, promising compounds are handed to ‘D’ (Development). Development is a completely new team of specialists responsible for building a supply chain for pre-clinical (safety) testing initially. That means proving the test compound that will be produced by the supply chain is safe to study in humans.