The Lowdown on Logistics

Outside Centre de Congrès de Lyon in Lyon, France.

The final week of April is always circled in Pharma Commerce’s calendar, as this marks the time in which LogiPharma Europe comes back into the fold. Held at the Centre de Congrès de Lyon in Lyon, France—about 300 miles south of Paris—the conference brings together executives in the supply chain, logistics, operations, distribution, and digital transformation spaces, all under one roof, while being touted as “the world’s largest life sciences supply chain event.”

I was given the opportunity to attend several sessions, some of which included:

• “Driving Agility and Resilience: How Can You Derive Actionable Insights from Your End-To-End Suppliers to Maximize Adaptability and Secure Your Global Supply Chain Networks?” (keynote panel discussion)
• “Digitalizing Patient Centricity: How Can You Leverage Innovative Tech to Ensure High Service Levels in the Face of Increasingly Complex Supply Chains?” (keynote panel discussion)
• “Embracing the Sea Freight Opportunity: How Can You Overcome Recent Disruption Challenges to Drive Cost-Reduction, Reliability and Sustainability?” (panel discussion)

There were various fascinating tidbits that resonated from each of these, but a noteworthy one came during day two of the show at the aforementioned “Digitalizing Patient Centricity” session. The discussion, moderated by Kelsey Carvell, partner at Deloitte, featured Didier Jourdan, associate VP, global supply chain, Sanofi; Javier Martin, SVP, global strategy and development operations, Grünenthal; and Jens Schader, CVP, global supply chain management, Boehringer Ingelheim. They addressed multiple questions broken down by category:

Personalized medicine. Where would you place your company on the spectrum of involvement with personalized medicine, and what are the factors your company is evaluating as it develops a patient-centric strategy around these products?

1. Segmentation. How are you managing to drive access and patient-centric operations in lower-volume and/or harder-to-reach regions?
2. New supply chains. How is the next generation of customized medicines—such as cell and gene therapy—driving patient-centric operations across the industry?
3. Resiliency and security. How are you building resilience across your supply chain and with contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) to guarantee availability of medicines, given demand fluctuations in key markets?
4. Balance with sustainability. Can you provide an example of how your company is aligning patient-centric strategy with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals?

As a media recording partner, Pharma Commerce had a filming stand located right outside the exhibit hall, which was a prime location for recording video interviews with subject matter experts. Among the executives we sat down with were Wayne Rothman, VP, value chain management, Johnson & Johnson; Frederic Brut, head of supply chain, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa and Asia-Pacific, MSD; and Niklas Adamsson, chief operating officer of Envirotainer.

Topics that were explored ranged from ways to better build digital capabilities into workflows, to the future landscape of cold chain storage and transportation. You can catch these interviews along with other recent show coverage at pharmaceuticalcommerce.com/latest-conference. We plan on making these event highlights a consistent staple in future issues of PC, so stay tuned for where we will end up next.