Mapping, analysis and risk assessment of the end-to-end supply-chain revealed a key pre-cursor to a chemical intermediate was being discontinued by the sole supplier. Armed with this knowledge, it was possible to purchase all remaining inventory and commence an exercise to explore alternative materials and suppliers. This averted a major threat to the pending launch.

A big pharma diagnostic arm, single sourced on a scarce biological, was being taken advantage of on price and service.

The supplier was gambling on the company not being willing to undertake the resource intensive programme of supplier qualification and material validation involved. Working with research biochemists, quality and manufacturing, it was possible to tender, qualify and validate a high grade second source, resulting in projected saving of over £1.5 million over a four year period.

Upgrading the procurement skills of a contracts management team, in a large European biotech company, was required to make a major impact on cash burn.

Working in close collaboration with clinical and pre-clinical management, it was possible to inject a strong commercial dimension into negotiations, identifying ‘cost out’ opportunities in initial bids of up to 15%. Subsequent contracts minimised the potential for scope creep, future change order submission and confused expectations.

Complexity and lack of integrated functional activity was causing supply risk and excess cost in the outsourced supply-chain of a US based Biotech Company.

Through a structured process of cross-functional workshops and team based analysis based on lean principles, it was possible to map the ‘current state’ supply-chain, identifying opportunities for streamlining and risk mitigation. This allowed a ‘future state’ supply-chain to be defined and agreed, taking out unnecessary steps and wasted activity. This resulted in a significantly more resilient supply-chain, with less opportunity for error and a reduction in cumulative lead time of greater than 20%.

Ineffective logistics outsourcing was causing a UK Biotech company costly trial delays, loss of cold chain shipments, excess shipping charges and much wasted internal activity.

Through tendering, using a detailed Request for Proposal and structured inclusive selection process, it was possible to appoint a preferred provider of third party logistics services. This significantly reduced internal management activity, provided detailed control information on costs and increased reliability and timeliness of service.

Three different Biotech companies all had a similar problem. How to manage capacity and supply schedules at our contractors, so as to minimise exposure to obsolescence and inflated inventory, but at the same time maintain enough inventory in the supply-chain to avoid stock outs?

Utilising a well defined process to convert marketing forecasts into time-phased requirement schedules through the end-to-end supply-chain, it was possible model an ‘envelope of uncertainty’ profile across the entire supply base. This allowed scale-up strategies and sourcing activities to be completed well ahead of time.

An emerging biotech company selected a contractor to undertake manufacture of dosage form for phase III and commercial supplies. It subsequently emerged that the contractor did not have sufficient expertise or capacity to cope with commercial secondary packaging and consequently another secondary packager had to be appointed. This resulted in double handling, increased opportunity for error, increased lead-time, additional contractual risk and wasted management time.

Short term tactics and a longer term strategy were required. Tactically, it was necessary to mitigate the adverse impact of the extra complexity, using well defined processes and procedures. The longer term strategic approach was to commence an exercise to determine feasibility of the supplier developing into the new competency areas or re-sourcing to already capable suppliers.