ANNE MARIE GAFFNEY
Pharmalex, Ireland

Abstract

Supply chains need to plan now for resilience to navigate the current turbulent market.

How is the COVID-19 crisis influencing pharma supply chains for the future? Is the global pharma supply chain under sustained threat? And what about Asia and its dominance in the supply chain? These are all valid questions considering recent and current events.

It is generally agreed that COVID-19 marks a point in the understanding of medicine supply risks, but will it fuel efforts to establish local supplies of chemicals and APIs as a “matter of national security”? In the last 12 months, Pharma companies have become acutely aware of their dependency on complex supply chains. As the result, the pandemic has finally convinced all stakeholders to build more resilience into their supply chains going forward.

In the last 10 years or so, lower costs have been a key decider in relocating a significant share of manufacturing capabilities to China and India. We have, therefore, seen a large increase in production volumes in these countries where we know that almost 40% of registered sites for APIs were located in India or China, according to FDA data published in 2019 (1).

The relocation of manufacturing to Asia has a direct impa ...