Expert interview with...Abdallah El-Mosallamy, GSK

Ahead of LogiPharma 2023, we sat down with Abdallah El-Mosallamy, Senior Manager, Global Supply Chain Quality at GSK. He shared how heads of supply chain can build resilience against economic uncertainty and push forward sustainability goals.

Want to get the full picture? Download the official LogiPharma Benchmark Report here.

With inflation rising, how can pharmaceutical organisations improve supply chain resilience and transparency?

"When thinking about supply chain visibility and transparency, this can be very specific to every distribution phase. Heads of supply chain looking to have end-to-end visibility. The global function scope is primary distribution while there will be another partner looking after the last-mile delivery. (e.g. Affiliates, etc).

The last mile is more than just sending a product to a wholesaler or final customer, we also trust the fact that we have strong local regulations in place to ensure extended controls after we transfer product ownership. Indeed, we wish to have E2E visibility for our products, but we can't control everything after we lose this visibility at the end of the distribution chain where the role of health authorities should exist.

In terms of resilience, I think we have a good model at GSK, by being very dynamic and smart in terms of our reaction to disruption and increased transportation costs. As an example, GSK has launched new mega project where we are switching the majority of our primary distribution from air to sea. We are trying to be more resilient, and more flexible along with looking for ways to be more cost-effective.

This is an opportunity to increase resilience while also making a positive environmental impact. By thinking with sustainability in mind and moving distribution to be by sea, pharmaceutical companies can increase reliability by reducing energy consumption.

The idea of this transformation is to consolidate our shipments for a specific region in one place instead of sending directly by air from supply sites to every market, I can send one container to different regional distribution centres under GSK control and manage distribution to final markets through those hubs."

How can pharmaceutical companies ensure their ESG goals are viable and remain on track to achieve a zero-waste supply chain?

"For GSK, sustainability has become a common language and I feel confident that we are on the right track to "achieving a zero-waste supply chain". In addition to above project, we have also implemented real-time monitoring and instead of using traditional monitoring devices, we implemented reusable devices.

It has a cost-saving benefit along with real-time monitoring which helps companies to intervene at a right time to resolve any issues and avoid late identification of issues that could result in rejection and supply disruption."

When considering optimising digital platforms, what should pharmaceutical companies prioritise to build a more patient-centric supply chain?

"Automation seems to be part of the pharmaceutical checklist in 2023 and it is on the GSK radar. Indeed, budget constraints and required investment in digitisation are very challenging with inflation costs, it is important to prioritize organization efforts to ensure the identification & deployment of the right platforms and different tools that will help organisations to achieve supply chain objectives.

An interesting example for patient-centric supply chain, the previously shared initiative to perform consolidated shipments under GSK extended oversight where we make best use of time to get closer to the final market in parallel to very long standard processes. It helps also to avoid disruption risk (congestion, flight arrangements, strikes, etc), since your stock is more decentralised."

You can hear more expertise from Abdallah at LogiPharma 2023, download the agenda here.