AMR Healthcare Exchange an Evergreen Opportunity for Value
Written By: Shabbir Dahod
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
I recently attended the AMR Healthcare
Exchange and I walked away with a feeling of Déjà vu. First of all,
Hussain Mooraj and the AMR team do a great job of
stimulating ideas and connections for joint value creation at all ends
and aspects of the supply chain, including pharmaceutical, life sciences
and health care participants. As always there was a clear sense of
urgency and a feeling of lost time and missed opportunities. This was
accentuated by the closing remarks by Johnson and Johnson (J&J)
President of Supply Chain and Business Processes, Tom Sullivan. Tom
outlined the major value opportunities attained by CPG that remain
distant goals for the Healthcare industry. His challenge to the industry
was to do for life saving drugs and devices what we do for Coke cans.
This year’s conference provided case studies of value attainment by
connecting providers into a Demand-Driven Supply Network (DDSN) of
Pharmaceutical and BioTech companies. Roddy Martin made the case for
Patient Outcomes as the Moment of Truth for the Healthcare value chain.
From the presentations it was clear that significant value attainment
was possible when companies collaborated to identify and understand each
others business issues and in turn develop mutual trust to enhance
integrated cross-company business processes for shared and measurable
value.
The frustration and excitement for all of us is the sheer volume of
opportunity and the feeling that four years ago we were discussing the
same opportunities. Because other industries dominate the annual Top 25
Supply Chain list, Healthcare needs its own special list of Healthcare
Top 25 to identify the leaders in this lagging industry. However,
our industry has complexity and dynamics that require greater care and
hence can support change in very measured steps. These steps need more
investment and oversight in our industry.
As an entrepreneur by nature and profession, I am an optimist! In my
first job in the summer 1981, between high school and college, I worked
for an entrepreneur who was starting a company to provide Local Area
Networking (LAN) gear. In doing research for him I was so excited by the
fact that he was entering a market at a time when market data
identified the 1980’s as the Network Decade. As years and decades past, I
was told that every year was the breakthrough year and every decade was
the Network Decade. Now it is clear that networking is an endless
source of value which grows exponentially as it matures.
DDSN is the same class of evergreen opportunity and the Healthcare
industry is transforming to leverage the value from integrating
processes, people and information. The strategic imperatives in all
parts of the value chain require greater network integration for the
next level of financial performance. We work across the value chain and
it is obvious to us that business plans more so than regulatory force
will drive the adoption of supply network solutions.
Please share with me your perspective. Are you as optimistic as I am and
what parts of the supply chain do you see collaborating more
effectively?
Peeking behind the Cloud by CNN
Written By: Brian Daleiden
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
We at TraceLink have been taking a hard look at Cloud computing for a
while now and it isn't a huge surprise. The solutions we built at
SupplyScape shifted from on-premise software with perpetual licenses to
SaaS-based software with term licenses back in 2005. There was
admittedly a lot of wailing and knashing of teeth as we tried to
determine the appetite in the pharmaceutical supply chain for hosted
software running critical operations. To the surprise of a few of us,
adoption actually occurred pretty quickly as performance and security
questions were quickly put to rest. As a result, our SaaS infrastructure
continues to bubble along nicely running our Nexus, E-Pedigree and
RxAuthentication solutions.
Thus, my antenna was up as I came across this
article (and video) by CNN today. Fun stuff! The synopsis is
that the author (John Sutter) basically woke up one day and became
intrigued at where does all of his data go when he uses Flickr, Google,
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The hunt is on as the John starts down
the path of trying to put his arms around the Cloud. (Spoiler Alert)
What John finds is that the Cloud is far from soft and fuzzy...rather it
is made up of a huge infrastructure of data centers, servers and all of
the other accouterments of a typical IT shop. Now, that isn't exactly a
surprise to us here but his exploration is a fun ride. Especially as he
tries to get the people in charge of these systems to talk about them.
One question in particular that Mr. Sutter raises relates to service
levels and trust in an infrastructure that you have a hard time
touching. As he puts it: "I thought about what I want in a cloud
service. I want my data to be available all the time. And I don't want
there to be any chance the company could lose it, a tricky request since
the hardware that stores our data is designed to fail from time to
time." This is a common question that we have worked with customers
on over the years and our own John
Kordash will be diving deeply into the Cloud in all its glory over
the next few months. Until then...don't let the Cloud rain on your
parade!
Pharma and Twitter - Patients and Providers but what about Operations?
Written By: Brian Daleiden
Friday, October 30, 2009
I have been keeping an eye on Twitter for a while now. Not that I paint
myself as an expert by any stretch of the imagination and Tweeting is
still more of an activity that I consciously force myself to think about
rather than feeling it is part of my DNA. A little different than, say,
our own Peter Spellman here who I swear needs a third hand just to keep
up with all the ideas that he would like to convey. Can you say
drinking from the fire hose??
Much of the buzz about Tweeting usually centers on its usage for
personal interests. A 24x7 channel for thoughts and ideas that you want
to share. What has been on my mind lately, though, has been the
business communications side of the issue. In that light, any new
bi-directional channel that enables me to listen to what others have to
say and improves my ability to communicate back to them is great.
A recent post
by ePharmaRx
got me thinking more about how this channel is used and viewed by the
Pharmaceutical industry. As ePharmaRx comments, many pharmaceutical
companies have just started to "officially" Tweet in the past year. This
is somewhat understandable given the concerns noted in several places
over the liability issues involved, particularly in the patient care
arena. Certainly, these official channels are somewhat separated from
the individual discussions that pharma employees have already opened via
Twitter.
So what about the operational groups and Twitter? How do the people
leading the charge in manufacturing, supply chain, contract outsourcing
and other functions view and use it? Based on my conversations with
people in these areas, the responses are all over the map. Some are
starting to find it a valuable new channel for "pushed" information from
companies and individuals which they can take note of if interested or
ignore if not. Others are keeping Twitter solely in the personal realm,
for now.
This is an issue that we here at TraceLink are looking at closely. Today
there are such a variety of ways for us to share information about what
we are doing, listen to what others are doing and gain quick, pointed
feedback on key issues. What exactly is the right role in B2B for the
140 character soundbite?
Pharmaceutical Supply Network Challenges Continue According to IMS Health Forecast
Written By: Brian Daleiden
Friday, October 23, 2009
Based on the recently released IMS Health industry forecast, it looks like the
macroeconomic trends driving increased complexity in pharmaceutical
manufacturing (both organic and contract manufacturing), supply chain
operations and sourcing will continue to grow. The question facing the
planning and operations leaders in these areas is how to get ahead of
this curve.
According to the new report, the seven "Pharmerging" markets comprised
of China, Brazil, India, South Korea, Mexico, Turkey and Russia will
contribute more than half of the expected global market growth in 2009.
While this share in 2009 is higher than the recent historical average,
these seven markets will be the source of more than 40 percent of total
global growth through 2013. This trend isn't surprising as these
countries are still climbing up the curve of broad access to primary
care, particularly in rural areas. Improved health insurance access is
stimulating improved health care regimens while the traditional focus on
acute care and infectious disease treatment is giving way to a new
focus on longer-term care of chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular
diseases and diabetes.
As this trend shows no signs of abating anytime soon, the question that
has been facing many of our customers is: Do we make tactical
adjustments in our manufacturing and supply chain plans or is now the
time to look at a strategic change in the way we do business? Markets
are becoming increasingly global yet at the same time the specific
desires of each country and region are becoming more local. In parallel,
the growing emphasis on operational improvement stimulates a desire for
global sourcing and global access to contract manufacturing, packaging
and distribution partners. This push into a more virtual environment is
straining traditional management processes and technologies to the
limit.
Is now the time to completely reexamine the foundation that all this
operates on?
Contract Pharma 2009 - The Pharma Outsourcing Event Recap
Written By: Brian Daleiden
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The TraceLink team just returned from this
year's Contract Pharma conference and we all agree that it was a stellar
event. Interesting and diverse sessions on a range of issues from
globalization, pharmaceutical outsourcing and clinical manufacturing
were combined with an enthusiastic audience and smooth logistics. This
was the second time we have attended and in my opinion, the bang-up job
that Gil Roth's Contract Pharma team continues to do is one reason for
the great crowd this year.
While I really cannot do the speakers justice in representing their
sessions, a few comments did jump out at me:
- Mac Lynch (VP, Contract Manufacturing, Pfizer Global Manufacturing) highlighted several expected benefits of outsourcing that revolved around the general theme of agility in the face of uncertainty. This has been a recurring theme in many of our customer discussions. Namely, as therapies get more targeted and markets get more diversified, it becomes even more imperative to create network flexibility, manage demand volatility and address new product uncertainty in a capital-efficient manner.
- Rachael Zuckerman (Research Analyst, Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development) talked about the explosion of contract clinical services. The number of companies actively managing clinical projects more than doubled in recent years to over 2,300 in 2008 according to Rachael's research. Combined with the growing globalization of clinical trials (32% of all CTs in 2007), this has been putting pressure on sponsors to find ways to effectively manage these far-flung operations. Rachael's research also highlighted how a focus on accountability can improve the contracting process. Driving visibility into operations and creating insight through knowledge management promotes the ability to optimize new contracts and reduce the number of contract changes.
- Deirdre Ogorzalek (Celgene Corp.) discussed how important it is to understand the team culture and process working style of your contract partner. While the going-in position of a sponsor may be to outline a specific working model for its partner, the reality is that the day-to-day working style and communication methods will greatly impact how a project is ultimately executed. So, creating bi-directionally open communications between the project teams on both sides is crucial in delivering a project that meet outlined KPIs and SLA metrics.
ContractPhama makes the presentations delivered at the event available to anybody via a simple registration process. This is a refreshing approach compared to the fees that other events will change for event proceedings. I urge anyone who wants to gain a 360-degree view of the current environment to check them out!
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