This is a Critical Time to Analyze Your Supply Chain Risks – What is the source of your critical materials and who’s your alternative supplier?
Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies should be looking at their sources of critical materials and determine if the origin of those materials is a country that is currently in the middle of a tariff war or is severely affected by the COVID-19 virus. However, the risks to evaluate are not just limited to tariff wars or COVID-19 issues but should also include natural disasters and severe weather events that can disrupt an extended supply chain. What about the influence of regulatory agencies and the dynamic nature of the rules relative to sourced materials? Political upheaval in Hong Kong, the tsunami in Japan, earthquakes in Chile or Italy are other examples of real threats to continuity of supply. Even if you have complete confidence that the primary supplier of your critical items will deliver every order on time and damage free, there are events that are out of their control. A strategy and an assessment are not only issues of health and safety but also of brand protection.
The complexity of the Biotech and Pharmaceutical supply chains have made endpoint and intermediate points (e.g., repackager, CMO) transparency very difficult. Companies should be decisive and take actions that proactively protect the continuity of supply of their patients’ products and should take action to build resilience and redundancy into their supply chains. It is time to evaluate critical material primary suppliers as well as to qualify alternative suppliers to address the current supply shortages and bottlenecks to ensure continuity of your supply chain. Tunnell Consulting can help you analyze your supply chain, identify the critical materials and assist in developing alternative suppliers. Please contact Bill Connell at bill.connell@tunnellconsulting.com to discuss how we may be of assistance.