In a bid to bring more drug manufacturing back to the U.S. and to ensure an adequate supply of essential medicines, even in public health emergencies, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is forming a public-private consortium on advanced manufacturing and the onshoring of domestic production.
Persistent U.S. drugs supply chain vulnerabilities, troublesome even before the COVID-19 pandemic, are drawing new attention in Washington. Now, with growing calls to increase supply chain resilience and a Biden administration executive order calling for an assessment of the situation, experts are looking for new paths to limit the risk of drug shortages, protect patient health, and to address pandemic preparedness and other national and health security threats.
NEW DELHI – Significant disruptions to supplies of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from China caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have led India to fundamentally rethink its supply chains and the structure of its pharmaceutical industry, according to industry executives and consultants.
Although the global impact of a novel virus like SARS-CoV-2 has so far reached devastating proportions, it has spurred science at an unprecedented rate with potential vaccines developed under a year now nearing U.S. authorization. But while some may say the end to this pandemic is in sight, an actual date is blurry at best, as manufacturing and supply capabilities muddy the outlook.
COVID-19 stalled clinical trials, halted elective surgeries, and body slammed many med-tech companies’ revenues. Despite that, an industry report released by Ernst & Young (EY) finds that the pandemic also drove some positive changes in the med-tech industry including long-neglected attention to enterprise-wide business continuity.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted a massive effect on procedure volumes across the globe, but concerns over supply chains have prompted political officials in Washington to encourage domestic production of drugs. That approach is also in play in a number of nations in the Asia-Pacific region, said Sana Siddiqui of Decision Resources Group, who noted that Beijing wants hospitals in China to ensure that 70% of devices used there are domestically manufactured by 2025.
Amid all the political positioning, finger-pointing, blame games and mountains of misinformation that have been as much a part of the COVID-19 pandemic as the coronavirus itself, there’s one point of agreement: The pandemic has been a painful experience that everyone needs to learn from so it’s not repeated in the future.
Amid all the political positioning, finger-pointing, blame games and mountains of misinformation that have been as much a part of the COVID-19 pandemic as the coronavirus itself, there’s one point of agreement: The pandemic has been a painful experience that everyone needs to learn from so it’s not repeated in the future.
While the U.S. and other countries are looking to step up their own domestic drug and device manufacturing, a bigger takeaway from the COVID-19 pandemic is the need for resilient supply chains that can withstand a global scramble for products suddenly more in demand than the supply can support.
With the economy and public health on the line, U.S. President Donald Trump thumped his Made in America pulpit again Thursday on a campaign swing through Ohio, in which he vowed to bring the pharmaceutical supply chain home over the next four years.
