SmartPSC (Smart Pharma Supply Chain): Application of digital technologies to integrate pharma manufacturing supply chain and enhance efficiency, productivity, flexibility, resilience, and sustainability

In order to meet National and International medicines demand, both small and large pharmaceutical companies need to use multiple suppliers. It takes significant effort to coordinate these separate companies and create an integrated plan that safely ensures patients get the medicines they need. Any changes to the plan take time and effort to manage and this creates waste.

To add to the complexity, in order to sign off a batch of medicines, a Qualified Person ( QP, the person who assures patient safety for a given company) must see all of this data in order legally to release the medicines into the supply chain. The challenge of assembling this data can add delay.

As the requirements of patients change, with an older population along with other constraints such as increasing complexity of medicines, more of the supply chain will migrate towards mixed-company models, putting stress on pricing and the ability of companies to deliver on their promises. The industry can't just 'throw more people at it' forever to solve the problem.

Data science can enable people to streamline the movement of information and look at these problems differently. Once the passage of data has been solved it will even be possible to migrate some of the decisions to electronic systems by using Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. This would allow QPs to focus on important questions. SmartPSC aims to apply these technologies to reduce waste, increase speed and improve access to medicines.

Creating a template by which this can robustly be done will be complex, as it will mean connecting ways of working and systems that have not standardly been connected as well as overcoming data security challenges.

This project aims to create the foundation for delivering this integrated supply chain vision by leveraging expertise and capabilities across a group of small and large companies within the UK pharma supply chain (SC) to deliver two work packages:

1\. Designing and implementing a way to get everyone to share their information in a quickly usable format, so it can move seamlessly and securely between companies so that we can build a real-time multi-company view of the supply chain.

2\. Link data from multiple companies so a QP can quickly and safely make decisions.

By delivering on this scope, we will be able to template future supply chains.