16 July 2024

Enabling Innovation and Accessibility: How the Digital Supply Chain Keeps Healthcare Moving

By Yvonne Cheah, Chief Operating Officer, Clinical Reach (Global Operations and SEA), Zuellig Pharma.

In today’s interconnected world, ensuring a resilient supply chain continues to be of paramount importance. Organisations across industries are seeking new approaches to strengthen and streamline their supply chain management systems in pursuit of greater efficiency.

This is especially true in the healthcare industry, where supply chain is notoriously known to be complex – stringent temperature controls, rigorous regulations, and the threat of counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products – these can severely impact patients’ access to life-saving treatments and tamper with the integrity of clinical trials. In 2021 alone, more than 16,000 vaccines were spoiled due to temperature breaches¹. Similarly, as many as 170 cancer clinical trials in the United States were impacted due to supply chain vulnerabilities during the pandemic². These issues can be managed with an advanced, connected, and agile supply chain management system.

The complexity of supply chain management

Supply chain is inherently intricate for several reasons: vulnerabilities to geopolitical and business environment uncertainties, fluctuating customer demands, and increasingly, data privacy and security concerns all make up a perfect storm for healthcare companies. On top of that, there are numerous stakeholders involved in the value chain, from manufacturers, distributors, customs, to third party last-mile logistics players. Delays, inefficiencies, or disruptions at any stage can have a domino effect throughout the entire supply chain, causing delays and/or product spoilage.

The supply chain of pharmaceutical products is equivalent to a lifeline that ensures patients have access to the healthcare they need and at the needed time. There is a pressing need to advance and digitalise supply chain and cold chain management systems to ensure security and traceability, so that patients can have timely access to high quality healthcare products, while ensuring integrity.

Mitigating risks with digital orchestration

Thankfully, with the evolution of technology, digital orchestration can be a solution that addresses the complexities of supply chain management. Digital orchestration is a holistic approach that uses technology to seamlessly connect, manage, and optimise every step of the supply chain. It allows for real-time data sharing and shipment tracking, empowering stakeholders with transparency and collaboration.

The pharmaceutical industry loses about US$35 billion annually because of failures in temperature-controlled logistics³ – which can be curbed if cold chain processes become more transparent and agile. With the help of IoT sensors, stakeholders can monitor for temperature fluctuations in real-time and intervene accordingly to prevent costly spoilage of temperature-sensitive medicine⁴. With digital solutions, organisations can also comprehensively track product from production to patient to curb the proliferation of counterfeit goods.

Accelerating clinical trial innovation through a modern supply chain

The benefits of a modern supply chain extend beyond the safe transportation of medicine and vaccines. Innovation within the pharmaceutical industry is moving at a rapid pace, and clinical trials are becoming increasingly complex. Studies can range from small-scale domestic and regional trials to larger, global multi-centre ones with diverse patient populations and more recently, centralised to decentralised or hybrid trial set-up. Clinical trials in Asia Pacific are also increasingly moving away from larger cities to smaller and more remote locations, making it increasingly challenging to manage logistics and compliance amidst diverse local regulations⁵.

The ability to operate with a global footprint befitting the needs of today’s clinical research landscape will be critical, especially as clinical needs grow more nuanced. With changing geographies comes increasingly complex regulatory and compliance standards, all of which necessitate a robust, end-to-end clinical supply chain and distribution solutions that can meet Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards. A seamless supply chain will also be instrumental in facilitating efficient sourcing of ancillary supplies, integrated storage and distribution processes, as well as localised return management. This will ensure the safe and timely delivery of critical trial materials to sites and patients worldwide, while adhering to evolving regulations in diverse regions such as Asia Pacific.

Controlled substances, antibiotics, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and other highly potent drugs also require different requirements during transportation and storage, making them vulnerable to temperature excursions throughout the supply chain. Improper management can therefore result in a great loss of time and resources, especially when organisations lack the right solutions and expertise. Thus, it is important to continually invest in cold chain infrastructure and innovation to accelerate the development and delivery of new medicine and therapies, in order to address patients’ unmet and urgent needs around the globe.

Digital orchestration is not a dream for the future, but an unavoidable necessity

A well-orchestrated and digitalised supply chain can directly impact patient care and the success of clinical trials, leading to better healthcare outcomes.

The healthcare industry can only continue to evolve by leveraging data to understand gaps in the sector and provide insights to optimise process in treating and reaching people across the globe. It is critical that companies in this space continue to pioneer and invest in shaping a future where patients have their healthcare needs met reliably through a connected and data-driven supply chain, making healthcare accessible for the wider population.

This article was published in Logistics Asia.

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