The pharmaceutical supply chains faced several challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Demand became uncertain as antiviral use rose but other chronic conditions went untreated. Limited workforces due to social distancing and travel restrictions affected sourcing and distribution. Manufacturing faced shortages of active pharmaceutical ingredients and delays in new product development. To prepare for continued uncertainty in 2021, pharmaceutical supply chains should diversify suppliers, prioritize worker safety, implement technologies like blockchain for transparency, and explore creative transport solutions to maintain resilience and flexibility.

1. Sunita Sharma | A033 | Minor Assignment
IMPACT OF PANDEMIC ON THE PHARMACEUTICAL SUPPLY CHAINS
− Demand uncertainty as antiviral use rises and other chronic conditions are left
untreated by patients due to concerns over exposure to COVID-19. Previous
demand forecasts, budgets, plans became unrealistic
− Limited workforce due to social distancing, movement curbs, personal safety
concerns, and labour migration, absenteeism
− Distribution Challenges due to curbs on local and international movement,
which affected sourcing and supply of goods and services. Slow, disrupted custom
clearances
− Travel and transport costs sharply increased by nearly 225% on average
− API shortages and procurement risk as heavy reliance on China and foreign
lands for raw materials, intermediates, and APIs
− Manufacturing operational stoppage due to API and workforce shortage
− Surge in Fraudulent & counterfeit Medicines and Medical Devices
− Customer Orders shiftslargely to at-home delivery processes like online
pharmacies
− Delay in New Product Development- Clinical Trial Disruptions due to social
distancing
− Import freight unavailability
− Supporting infrastructure for mobility unavailable
− Capacity crunch due to high demands
WHAT SHOULD PHARMACEUTICAL SUPPLY CHAINS PREPARE THEMSELVES
FOR GEARING UP AGAINST AN UNCERTAIN 2021?
− Reshoring and expanding API manufacturing capabilities to continue
production and avoid mass shortages. Diversify supply chains from a geographic
perspective and Shift to localize to minimise risk
− Continuation of manufacturing operations, repurposing of facilities.
− Prioritizing staff safety, Workermobility facilitation, labor availability,
Upskilling, cross-skilling, and reskilling
− Diverting resources to achieve security and flexibility- back-ups and new
vendors, Risk sharing, Supplier diversification,

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− Building resilience through communication with clients, vendors,government
bodies and on ground employees
− Implementation of safe product pick-up methods like contactless delivery
− The future of work will likely be remote and distributed, and new capabilities and
talent will be needed now
− Traceability, risk management, resilience,agility and transparency will be critical
− Adoption of Technologies- Blockchain,Cloud SCM solutions, digitization,
automation, robotics, AI, IoT, Big Data for more efficient, and cost-effective supply
chains to avoid counterfeit products and predictive analytics to forecast demand
− Outsourcing supply-chain activities to specialists to reduce risk, increase
flexibility, adoption of Supply chain as a service (SCaaS) providers
− E-commerce- increase in online shopping and speeding up e-commerce adoption
− Collaborative planning and forecasting
− Finding Opportunity in Uncertainty A New Paradigm
− Creative transportsolutions,including postal services, Pooling of air/road cargo
among companies, Coordination with airlines/airport
− Emphasis on Cold Supply Chain due to high demand
− Optimizing inventory buffers and safety stocks to avoid the risk of stock-outs
− Reduce dependency on few customers/markets