At this year’s LogiPharma 2024 event, we caught up with some of the pharmaceutical supply chain sector’s thought leaders. We asked them about everything from digital transformation to AI and the climate crisis, hoping to learn more about the trends shaping the industry, and how their organisations are responding to the challenges ahead.
Here’s Shabbir Dahod, President and CEO, TraceLink, discussing the most pressing issues facing the global pharmaceutical supply chain. TraceLink is a leading end-to-end digital network platform for intelligent orchestration of the supply chain. It enables visibility, traceability, and collaboration between supply chain partners. Through its Opus Platform, solutions like the Multienterprise Information Network Tower (MINT), and its B2N Integrate-Once™ network, TraceLink connects manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, healthcare providers, and regulatory agencies on a single platform. This enables seamless data sharing, real-time tracking of products, and ensures regulatory compliance. These benefits are especially important for for pharmaceutical products where patient safety and drug authenticity are critical. TraceLink’s solutions help reduce inefficiencies, prevent drug shortages, and verify timely delivery of critical healthcare products.
1. What are your biggest takeaways from this year’s LogiPharma event?
At LogiPharma, supply chain digitalisation emerged as a key theme. It highlighted how digital platforms are transforming pharmaceutical operations by offering real-time visibility, better coordination, and reduced inefficiencies.
Companies are increasingly relying on these tools to meet the growing demand for faster, more accurate delivery of medications. Another prominent topic was the use of AI for supply chain resiliency. Here, predictive analytics are helping companies anticipate disruptions and optimise inventory.
Additionally, DSCSA compliance was a major focus, stressing the need for digital tools to ensure traceability, product safety, and regulatory adherence.
2. More broadly, what kind of shape does the pharmaceutical supply chain find itself in after such a remarkable few years?
The pharmaceutical supply chain today is navigating a period of intense transformation and pressure.
Factors such as COVID-19, political conflicts, and inflation have shown us the weak points in the supply chain, such as over-reliance on certain regions for manufacturing, a lack of visibility across the supply chain, and challenges in meeting demand surges. However, these challenges have given rise to great opportunities to transform legacy supply chain processes, which have previously held back the industry.
For example, we’ve seen tremendous innovation over the last few years. Companies are adopting AI to improve resilience, visibility, and collaboration across the supply chain. The focus is shifting toward greater agility and patient-centric approaches to ensure the continuous supply of essential medicines.
Looking ahead, the pharmaceutical industry’s adoption of new technologies is creating a more resilient and agile global supply chain.
These advancements, coupled with a growing emphasis on patient-centric approaches, position the industry to overcome current challenges and build a stronger, more adaptable supply network. With continued collaboration and innovation, the future of the global supply chain holds great promise for ensuring the consistent delivery of essential medicines to patients worldwide.
3. What do you feel are the biggest lessons that the last few years have to teach us about the future? And are modern supply chains prepared to deal with the kind of ‘black swan’ events we’ve seen recently?
In recent years, supply chains have learned that resilience and adaptability hinge on real-time, end-to-end visibility across the entire network. This level of visibility allows companies to make proactive, data-driven decisions, swiftly reroute operations, and respond to sudden disruptions in ways that were previously unimaginable.
The move towards digital transformation has accelerated the adoption of advanced technologies like AI and predictive analytics. These tools turn real-time data into actionable insights. It helps supply chains not only detect potential risks but also intelligently orchestrate responses. For instance, AI can analyse patterns in data to anticipate shortages, and automation can trigger adjustments in inventory or production levels before disruptions impact customer delivery.
Furthermore, real-time visibility enhances collaboration with suppliers and partners across the globe. Rather than being limited to isolated insights, companies are now operating within interconnected multi-enterprise ecosystems where data is shared seamlessly across the supply chain. This transparency fosters a collective agility that strengthens resilience, ensuring that everyone from manufacturers to distributors to retailers can adjust in sync.
With this digital transformation and the focus on real-time data, modern supply chains are more agile, resilient, and prepared to navigate future “black swan” events. The shift towards end-to-end network visibility and intelligent orchestration is not just about meeting today’s challenges. It’s also about setting a foundation for a new era of supply chain management—one where AI-driven foresight and flexibility become the norm rather than the exception.
4. What should pharmaceutical supply chain leaders have at top of mind when they think about implementing GenAI? What is TraceLink doing with the technology?
TraceLink’s network platform plays a critical role in feeding data lakes. It does this by capturing and consolidating vast amounts of real-time supply chain data from multiple stakeholders, including manufacturers, distributors, and healthcare providers.
This networked approach ensures that data, such as transactional records, inventory levels, shipment tracking, and compliance information, is aggregated and structured efficiently for analysis. By feeding this data into data lakes, businesses can leverage advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to derive actionable insights, enhance decision-making, and optimise supply chain performance.
For CSCOs looking to start their generative AI journey, the first step is to evaluate their current data infrastructure. Generative AI relies heavily on clean, high-quality data. Therefore, understanding the maturity of existing data systems, identifying gaps, and ensuring data governance policies are in place is critical. This involves assessing how well the organisation collects, stores, and manages supply chain data, as well as determining whether the current IT infrastructure can support the integration of advanced AI technologies.
Next, CSCOs should align AI initiatives with business goals, ensuring that AI use cases—such as demand forecasting, inventory optimization, or supply chain risk mitigation—are directly tied to strategic objectives. They need to prioritise areas where AI can deliver immediate and measurable value.
It’s also crucial to build cross-functional collaboration between IT, operations, and supply chain teams. AI implementation requires a strong partnership between technical experts and supply chain leaders to ensure that solutions are both technically feasible and operationally relevant.
Finally, start small and scale. Pilot programs are an excellent way to test AI capabilities before putting them in place throughout the organisation. These pilots help identify potential challenges, refine AI applications, and build confidence within the organisation.
5. What’s the next step for pharma supply chain leaders and how can they take it?
The pharmaceutical supply chain can take the next step forward by focusing on a few key strategies. First, digitalising end-to-end information flows is critical because it lays the groundwork for every other advancement. Without digitalisation, supply chains lack the unified, real-time data necessary to track product movement, monitor quality, and proactively respond to disruptions.
Digital information flows make it possible to see and manage the entire supply chain as a connected ecosystem, breaking down silos and enabling faster, data-informed decisions at every stage.
Collaboration is equally important. By encouraging better integration between suppliers, manufacturers, and logistics partners through shared digital platforms, the industry can improve communication and alignment across the entire ecosystem.
To build resilience and agility, the industry must diversify suppliers, regionalise production. Not only that, but it should use AI-driven forecasting to predict and mitigate risks.
Lastly, as the industry shifts towards patient-centric models, supply chains will need to adapt to handle smaller, specialised shipments. This is particularly true for sensitive products like gene therapies and vaccines. This can be achieved by investing in advanced logistics infrastructure, such as temperature-controlled systems, to ensure product integrity.
- Digital Supply Chain
- Risk & Resilience
