Carlo M. Buonamico
TKS Publisher

Abstract

How can we innovate the drug supply chain and turn it agile and flexible? How can technology and “industry 4.0” help in this process and how do we achieve the ideal balance between exploiting innovation and humanising technology? How do we optimise supply chain management and ensure quality throughout the entire supply chain? And how do we make sure we do not lose focus on the main goal in new drugs development, that is patient centricity? These and many other questions were given an answer at the Supply Chain conference held in Milan on May 9th, attended by representatives of all the leading Italian pharmaceutical companies.

If indeed it is a revolution we are witnessing, then “industry 4.0” is certainly the novelty that is driving major improvements in the drug supply chian. But can technology and industry 4.0 really change the structure of the entire supply chain?

According to participants in the event organized by IKN Italy, industry 4.0 is above all about abundance. In the last 100 years, in fact, life expectancy has increased by 250%, the price of food has decreased by 1 time, the cost of energy has decreased by 30 times, transportation costs by 100. Communication, above all, has especially benefited from today’s global scale economy: communicating costs 100,000 times less than in the past, which has also led to a massive reduction in the costs for accessing knowledge. What about the supply chain? How has it been affected by this technological revolution? Products have increasingly got smaller and tailored to patient needs, relocation, channel shortening, reduction of lead time and stocks, safety and traceability are the processes in the drug supply chain that have seen major changes through the years. The impact technology ...