Page 22 - ITLN May-June 2021 issue for Magzter

P. 22

Interview
Vickram Fast is fine,
Srivastava

of regulatory fees, audits are required
and any change in vendor sources but Accuracy is
or manufacturing facilities is time
consuming. Also, logistics plays a very
important role moving downstream to
upstream. So, if there is a demand for everything.
100,000 vials and you have a capacity of
only 10,000 vials, the capacity planning
cannot be done overnight. Therefore,
supply chains need to be more agile
and nimble footed to react to demand
changes. But we also have to be very
cognizant that we are a very heavily
regulated industry and we are in the
sophisticated business of making
life saving drugs. So, every pill and
every vial of the vaccine that gets
manufactured, has to have the same
quality norms when it was developed.
So it becomes very difficult for the
industry to be very agile and to react
quickly. But having said that, I think
in this new world that we're living in,
we don't have an excuse or an option
anymore. Supply chain professionals
have to be cognizant of the risks that
of the world because India is almost are involved and how we can de-risk
supplying a third of the world's generic it at critical nodes so that critical
pharmaceuticals. Right now, India is In the volatile and life-saving drugs can be supplied
impacted, tomorrow China could be uncertain world continuously to the end patient.
impacted and Covid-19 is not going to that we live in now,
just go away. So we have to be prepared pharma supply chain How can the pharma industry stay
for such supply chain disruptions going ahead of these insidious variants?
forward. In the volatile and uncertain professionals need to The pharma supply chain comprises of
world that we live in now, our supply de-risk multiple stages starting from the design
chain professionals need to de-risk. discovery phase to the final delivery
This can be achieved in two ways. One Going forward, business continuity will stage to the end consumer. I believe that
is to collaborate and partner with your become a critical node for companies. the Indian pharmaceutical companies
vendors so that you understand their We need to ensure that we continue need to step up to their game now
manufacturing cycles, you understand doing what we were able to do and and get into the design and discovery
their suppliers, where they are getting disruptions like a Covid-19 pandemic phase, which probably we have seen a
their starting material, what kind of does not bring us back to ground zero lot during the vaccine development. For
inventories they are managing, and also and rebuild it agian. instance, Bharat Biotech has developed,
with respect to how you can de-risk discovered and designed the vaccine
geographically. In the pharma industry, In your view, how vital will effective completely in-house. So, we need more
our vendor base is spread across the supply chains be in solving the current in that space, more of innovation and
world - we have materials coming in crisis of supply-demand mismatch – development. When the innovation
from US, Germany, Europe and China. for instance, shortage of Remdesivir? happens in the drug design and
From an API perspective, almost about We are part of the critical value development stage, it allows flexibility
65 percent of the bulk drug comes from chain. When we talk from a demand and a lot of options with respect to
China. So we have heavy dependence on perspective, the pharma industry selecting the manufacturing facilities
China. We need to look at localisation is probably the world's third most etc. that can be built in into your supply
so that we can get our key starting regulated industry after nuclear and chain. It also allows building agility in
material within the country, so that aviation. Any change in vendor or the supply chain with proactive crisis
we have better control on how we are manufacturing facility, increase in management. Scenario planning is also India’s Leading 3PL Partner
able to manage supplies of critical raw capacity needs regulatory approvals, critical where if something goes wrong
material and inventories. This will lead and the timelines for these are neither with the supply chain of Plan A, you have
to lesser disruptions in the supply chain. quick nor cheap. You need to pay a lot Plan B ready. 

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