Innovations in Supply Chain, in Manufacturing and Distribution

Moderator José Antonio García, Vice President at DHL Supply Chain Mexico started the panel by stating that innovation is a must in the pharmaceutical industry, so he asked his fellow panelists to share their company’s innovations briefly after presenting the audience with a drone ambulance project from Holland.

Panelist Fernando Pacheco, Head of Procurement at Bayer Mexico, said that his company has a very innovative product that offers radioactive therapy for bone cancer patients with a new approach.“This innovation attacks cancer cells and seeks to give a focalized therapy that would not affect the patient’s body,” Pacheco explained. Bayer’s product has a 28-day expiration and, according Pacheco the biggest challenge for this medication is the logistics since it has to get the patient before day 15 from the product’s creation.

Carlos Gutiérrez, Corporate Director of Material Resources at ABC Medical Center, intervened and stated that ABC Medical Center’s main innovation is the outsourcing of logistics and inventory. “Our focus is the recovery and attention of patients. For many years the hospital was limited to grow, so we reached out to the world to see what they were doing,” ABC’s manager described. Yet, the panelist mentioned that there’s room for improvement in the private sector to streamline products, services and processes.

The fourth panelist, Miguel Ángel Ricchiuti, from laboratory Apotex, said that in order to achieve innovation, companies should start breaking their paradigms. He explained that the first step to do this would be to break the traditional business model and, as Apotex did, directly approach clients and learn about their demand. Ricchiuti proposed an integrated business solution (IBS) for each pharmaceutical player to offer medications in faster way.
Moderator García, moved on and presented the DHL parcel drone, an innovative tool now used in Germany that is, actually, providing medical supplies for a little unconnected island in the North.

Fernando Pacheco’s point of view consisted in further explaining Bayer’s product and challenges, however he pointed out that in Mexico, there are little radioactive distributors and more competence is needed to excel and offer a better service for patients.
For panelist Gutiérrez the three main guidelines for ABC are to offer better devices, and meditation at a more competitive cost. “Private medicine is getting more expensive and we need more participation from the industry players to deliver the expected quality and to stay focused on the industry objectives,” he mentioned.

Finally, Miguel Ricchiuti said that the generic sector might need better forecasting to deliver efficiently and keep bio similar medications at low cost. He argued that the best way for Mexico to innovate at the moment is to find new ways to lower operational costs.