Covid-19 created the perfect storm for the pharma industry’s already challenged supply chain network. The pandemic augmented supply chain risk and exposed weak areas such as the lack of end-to-end visibility. That’s an observation from Daniel Carchedi, Senior Director of Business Development and Strategy, Microsoft Health and Life Sciences. 

Carchedi led a panel discussion, “Digital ecosystems and how to future proof supply chains” on how tech companies, such as Microsoft and Accenture, are closely collaborating with the pharma industry as they seek to repair and improve manufacturing supply chain issues exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Speakers in the discussion also included:

• Diane Krisciunas, Senior Vice President, Pharma Supply Chain Technology, GlaxoSmithKline
• Anne Marie O’Halloran, Managing Director, Supply Chain – Life Sciences, Accenture
• Mike Walker, Author, “REWIRE! Using the Digital Ecosystem Playbook to Reinvent Your Business

This panel was part of a larger virtual healthcare summit by Microsoft. In a series of interviews as part of the Microsoft Envision Healthcare Summit, attention was drawn to the myriad of ways cloud computing technology touches different aspects of healthcare across providers, payers, med tech, and pharmaceuticals. 

To view the virtual summit, click here. 

Increasing collaboration between software and pharma companies creates greater transparency across the supply chain which is essential to the complex processes of drug development. Greater transparency improves the ability by pharma companies to not only identify fraudulent behavior and stop counterfeit drugs, but also to aggregate and analyze data in new and unique ways to unify partners, noted O’Halloran.    

“Control towers are how you bring together disparate data from inside and outside of your network,” O’Halloran said.

Krisciunas shared how GSK is using control tower tech to inform logistics decisions. 

“You could have 10-15 [digital] ecosystems to manage the supply chain. It’s not just one central ecosystem to rule them all like you have with other sectors.”

The rapid scaling of sophisticated data aggregation tools by technology and pharma companies will help ensure that as drug development becomes increasingly complex, the supply chain will be equipped to meet the biopharma industry’s needs.

To learn more about how pharma companies are collaborating with cloud computing providers,  follow this link.

Photo: zorazhuang, Getty Images