Pharmaceutical supply chain risks: a systematic review

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Pharmaceutical supply chain risks: a systematic review Mona Jaberidoost1, Shekoufeh Nikfar1, Akbar Abdollahiasl1,2 and Rassoul Dinarvand1,3*

Abstract Introduction: Supply of medicine as a strategic product in any health system is a top priority. Pharmaceutical companies, a major player of the drug supply chain, are subject to many risks. These risks disrupt the supply of medicine in many ways such as their quantity and quality and their delivery to the right place and customers and at the right time. Therefore risk identification in the supply process of pharmaceutical companies and mitigate them is highly recommended. Objective: In this study it is attempted to investigate pharmaceutical supply chain risks with perspective of manufacturing companies. Methods: Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science bibliographic databases and Google scholar scientific search engines were searched for pharmaceutical supply chain risk management studies with 6 different groups of keywords. All results found by keywords were reviewed and none-relevant articles were excluded by outcome of interests and researcher boundaries of study within 4 steps and through a systematic method. Results: Nine articles were included in the systematic review and totally 50 main risks based on study outcome of interest extracted which classified in 7 categories. Most of reported risks were related to supply and supplier issues. Organization and strategy issues, financial, logistic, political, market and regulatory issues were in next level of importance. Conclusion: It was shown that the majority of risks in pharmaceutical supply chain were internal risks due to processes, people and functions mismanagement which could be managed by suitable mitigation strategies. Keywords: Supply chain risks, Pharmaceutical risks, Pharmaceutical supply risks, Medicines supply risks, Risks management

Introduction Access to medicine as a human right is one of the main objectives of healthcare systems [1]. Pharmaceutical supply chain should provide medicines in the right quantity, with the acceptable quality, to the right place and customers, at the right time and with optimum cost to be consistent with health system’s objectives and also it should make benefits for its stockholders [2]. Any risks affecting the pharmaceutical supply chain, not only can waste the resources but also can threaten the * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmaceutical administration, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1417614411, Iran 3 Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1417614411, Iran Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

patients’ life by hindering access to medicines [3]. Risk management is not only important in the pharmaceutical supply chain, but also is a major player in other aspects of pharmaceuticals such as prescription and uses of medicine [4,5]. Assessing and implementing the strategies to ma