A Journey of the Mind

Nicholas Saraceno

MJH Life Sciences—Pharma Commerce’s parent company—prides itself on valuing career development and learning. This is presented in various forms, including internal trainings for professional skill development, but also in encouraging employees to continuously educate themselves on the people and topics they cover.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoy taking advantage of the latter by attending webinars hosted by leaders and experts in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically pertaining to topics that our readership would benefit most from. Fitting that bill, I thought, was a recent webinar I attended titled “Solving the pharmaceutical supply chain challenges.”

It was moderated by Sreedhar Patnala, general manager, Systech, who was joined by IDC's Simon Ellis, group VP of global supply chain practice, and Michael Townsend, research director, life sciences commercialization strategies. Systech is a provider of digital identification and traceability solutions, while IDC is a market intelligence firm. The presentation referenced several forces at play that are impacting trends within the life science industry, including:

1. Global political and economic uncertainty
2. The rise of patient centricity and precision medicine
3. The convergence of life sciences and healthcare value chains
4. Growing cybersecurity threats
5. The evolving regulatory landscape
6. Talent shortage and workforce development
7. The expansion of sustainability agendas

While most agree that mitigating risk is an absolute necessity for the supply chain, Ellis noted that there are various ways companies can tackle risk beyond just regulatory compliance-centered track-and-trace initiatives. For example, efforts in outbound supply chain traceability or cold chain monitoring can help drive critical cost reduction and brand protection goals (read full webinar writeup here).

Indeed, more food for thought to add to my educational library.

Nicholas Saraceno is Pharmaceutical Commerce's Editor. He can be reached at [email protected].