Pharmaceutical serialization and the digital supply chain have a tight association, according to the pharma industry's current tech-leaning approach. The most forward-thinking pharmaceutical businesses are beginning to recognize and profit from this.

A very well constructed digital supply chain built on web-enabled capabilities and technologies provides a significant competitive advantage. A pharma firm with a digital supply chain, or any of its customers and vendors, will be more proficient at transferring resources, assets, inventories, and staff in a just-in-time manner, maximizing enterprise-wide resource allocation and planning both rapidly and effectively.

The pharmaceutical business, like any other, is being transformed by digital transformation. Since 2010, the digital health business has increased, and recent research found that over 74% of respondents felt that Covid-19 had greatly expedited
digital transformation in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. According to another survey, 35% of respondents believe the pandemic has expedited the digital transformation in the pharma sector by more than five years.

The more exact and detailed the data used to steer a company's digitization endeavor is, the more likely it will be able to respond to any concerns or hazards that emerge - and to do so at the appropriate level and with the proper focus. The higher the company's proficiency, the more significant its realized savings in terms of money, time, and resources.

What is Digital Transformation in the Pharmaceutical Industry?
In the pharmaceutical industry, digital transformation entails integrating different digital technologies to enhance the manufacturing and delivery of healthcare products and services. The pharmaceutical industry can benefit from digital transformation in the following areas:

  • Enhance drug development
  • Improve patient engagement and care
  • Improve medication research and development
  • Pharmaceutical distribution improvements
  • Cost savings
  • Carbon footprint reduction
  • Increase in the supply chain's transparency

The Potential of Technology in Pharma Supply Chain

Until now, the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries have been cautious in deploying digital technology to improve production and supply chain processes, but that prudence is becoming a burden. As the pharmaceutical business faces new issues such as globalization, increased supply chain complexity, pricing, cost pressures, and customized treatment, digitalization has enormous potential to assist organizations in adapting. Companies may significantly boost visibility into their supply chain operations and make better and quicker choices using digital technologies.

The supply chain's ultimate purpose is to get items into customers' hands. It is especially essential in the case of  medications to inform clients about the status of their purchases. Using data for accurate planning necessitates a degree of information that only digitalization can supply.

Digitization enables all supply chain stakeholders to exchange and exploit up-to-date inventory data, assisting in the automation of the movement of goods from producers to their destinations. It enables complete shipment visibility, allowing you to know where cargo is always and plan appropriately. It also enables shippers to educate their partners
and consumers about market availability. It all comes down to using real-time data to ensure critical product delivery.

Pharma companies may integrate their supply chains and optimize operational procedures through digitization, making them more adaptable and responsive. Planning accuracy, production efficiency and productivity, inventory levels, and service levels increase as a result.

Pharma Supply Chain Ecosystem and Role of Digitization

A digital supply chain ecosystem must be built to capitalize on this potential, including virtual supply chain control tools, a digitally enabled physical supply chain, and a cloud-based information architecture. When these aspects interact  synchronously, machines, resources, and humans communicate as a cyber-physical strategy, resulting in improvements at all stages of the operations value chain: plan, source, make and deliver. Furthermore, businesses require a planned  implementation road map that tackles risk elements such as cybersecurity.

Digitization is a challenging journey, and risk considerations such as cybersecurity are worries, but as other more sophisticated industries have demonstrated, digital transformation offers a clear chance to achieve a competitive edge. Given the rapid speed of technological development, pharmaceutical businesses must prioritize digitizing their operations and supply chain.

Conclusion
Digitization can profoundly disrupt pharmaceutical operations, allowing for game-changing performance increases. Pharma businesses should immediately embark on this path, digitizing their processes and supply chains while developing a plan and road map for the coming years. Companies that take the initiative can gain a long-term competitive edge, operate with greater agility, control, cost-efficiency and ultimately deliver better patient care.

How can CosmoTrace help?
CosmoTrace was formed by an expert, experienced team that has since worked extensively with every part of the pharmaceutical supply chain from manufacturing through to final distribution. As Serialization Consulting Experts, our focus is on delivering the absolute best serialization support by offering long-term serialization and sustainability strategies and providing forward-thinking industry solutions.

We offer premium support and services that can help your business with serialization implementation. Our team of experts ensure that you are up to date with all global traceability regulations and will help in creating a successful long-term serialization strategy.

Contact us for a free consultation