Some marketplaces evolve very quickly, one of which is the health industry. More people need condition-sensitive medicines and therapies that are getting more expensive every year. Along with the medications are the decrease in the life cycles of some products and the shift to the world of digital marketing.
Various forces are pushing the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries into a new way of doing things, and they generally dictate the overall model of the supply chain. Read more about the pharma chain in this link here.
Some of the examples are the changing way of assessing medicines. Monitoring and approval continue to evolve with the presence of new technologies, and some are utilizing more efficient logistics and distribution operations that help patients get their medications in the fastest time possible.
However, the healthcare costs in many countries have also increased due to a pandemic, and a large number of communities that are becoming health-conscious. This has resulted in more public scrutiny, which has affected the compliance and risk management efforts that many manufacturers are following.
Nowadays, the real goal is to focus more on the patient and the outcomes of the medications. Many countries like the USA have developed stringent laws that affect many pharmaceutical companies. Some are struggling to comply with the new environmental regulations and strict laws, which is why many private manufacturers are looking at other options to improve their supply chain.
It’s not a secret that considerable efforts to change have been made in the past few years. However, many operations are still struggling due to inefficient supply chains, equipment that can’t handle the workload, and under-utilized logistics. Below is a day in a pharmaceutical company’s life to better understand its operations.
What’s Included in the Day of a Pharma Provider?
- They request an order with their distribution partner through emails, phone, online platforms, or fax.
- These distributors confirm that they have received the order and will route this to the distribution center.
- A sophisticated warehouse management system picks up the order, packs it, and ships it. These operations tend to run efficiently and smoothly nowadays.
- An order is picked from a different location with the help of various technologies. These logistics are typically handling the product requirements and inventory velocities of pharmaceuticals.
- The order is shipped and packed through delivery trucks if they are in bulk. They might also be sent via UPS if they are going to be delivered to an individual.
- The providers can receive the order; in some situations, this can be next-day or same-day.
Getting Help with your Chain of Supply
Generally, the supply of the pharmaceutical chain works through various components like wholesale distributors, a network of manufacturers, managers, and more. After the production of prescription drugs, they fall into two categories: generic products and branded or patented drugs.
The branded ones are more expensive since they have devoted a portion of their budget to the thorough research of the drugs. Think about Novartis and Pfizer. On the other hand, generic products don’t include research and clinical trials in their process. The generic brands usually compete by directly manufacturing similar ingredients to the branded ones after the patent expires.
Many manufacturers oversee the process of making medications from the first point of development up to the distribution to the wholesalers. They are in charge of looking for companies that can help them create a finish dosage form and do clinical trials to ensure the safety and efficacy of the drugs. In some situations, the finished medicines are distributed directly to hospitals, pharmacies, and specialized drugstores.
While the wholesalers bring in the bulk of the revenues for many manufacturers, there are cases where the government might sometimes need these pharma products in size, such as in the case of vaccines. They are distributed to various organizations and legitimate programs through a series of transactions and rarely do they go directly to self-insured employers and consumers.
The drug makers have the greatest influence on determining the prices. They anticipate and study the demand for years and forecast marketing to create a wholesale acquisition cost. This is the brand’s list price before the price reductions, rebates, and discounts are included.
A price baseline is based on the wholesale acquisition cost or WAC, which is what many wholesalers pay for. The companies can choose to add the rebates depending on many factors like immediate payment for the goods and a huge market share. The wholesale enterprises might also be required to pay various distribution service fees based on the WAC’s percentage. These costs might include inventory management, logistics, reports, distribution, and financial handling.
Wholesalers Consisting of Pharmacies
Many wholesalers’ roles include making the supply chain more manageable and efficient. The wholesalers are the ones who contact over 50,000 pharmacies and other dispensaries to ship the medications in bulk.
The manufacturers can ship a large amount of medication to the wholesaler, which keeps the costs down instead of sending them to thousands of pharmacies all over the country. Others might specialize in handling a specific type of medicine made for the elderly or cancer patients, and they might include repackaging, buyback programs, and management in their services.
With the combination of the purchasing power of the wholesalers, they can help the small-scale pharmacies get better deals on generic medications. This industry has typically earned discounts and rebates for its prompt payments and excellent customer service. See more about generic vs brand-name drugs in this url: https://www.healthline.com/health/drugs/generic-vs-brand.
The category of pharmacies might include retail chains and big box stores. They can account for almost 70% of the drugs being distributed in the market and provided to various federal facilities, nursing homes, HMOs, clinics, and hospitals.
With the rise of the wholesalers and distributors today, the development and manufacturing of drugs have become easier. They can negotiate discounts which also puts the prices down. The timely fulfillment and payments made it possible to get prescription medications at a lower price, and this is something that’s very common today.