Medicine Supply Map

Strengthening pharmaceutical supply chain resilience

You can’t strengthen something if you don’t know weakness exists. USP’s Medicine Supply Map enhances transparency of the upstream pharmaceutical supply chain to help identify vulnerabilities and deliver insights that can guide risk mitigation strategies and investment in supply chain resilience.

A more transparent medicine supply chain can help governments, manufacturers, distributors and providers to protect patients and strengthen the supply chain by reducing the frequency and duration of drug shortages and the presence of poor-quality medicines in the market.

 

pediatric oncology report

Quantifying drivers of supply chain resilience in pediatric oncology medications

Data analytics shed light on factors that can affect the resilience of the pharmaceutical supply chain and the potential impact on pediatric oncology medicines. Sign up to download the whitepaper.

 

 

light-gray


 

Visibility to identify vulnerabilities and lower quality risks

The pharmaceutical supply chain is constantly responding to variables ranging from natural disasters to regional geopolitical climates. In this ever-changing landscape, it’s critical to track factors that could impact manufacturing and product availability. USP’s Medicine Supply Map analyzes information from disparate data sources and extracts relevant insights, that identify, characterize and quantify risk and resilience of the upstream pharmaceutical supply chain.

Insights to build supply chain resilience 

truck in the snow

Limited medicine inventories make risk analysis more important than ever

Most drugs only have a 1- to 6-month supply of product filling the entire supply chain, caused, in part, by just-in-time production and pressures to minimize inventory-on-hand. This may not provide enough inventory and lead to drug shortages in the event of demand spikes, as in the case of the global coronavirus pandemic, or due to unanticipated decreases in production. Without early warning signals, stakeholders are left with little flexibility to respond when unanticipated changes in supply or demand occur.

empty pharmacy shelves

Imagine a world where the supply chain is well understood. If there is an outage at an API manufacturer, providers, regulators and other stakeholders can immediately assess what drug products might be at risk of shortage. When a hurricane or flood occurs in a distant or near part of the world, stakeholders know what medicines are manufactured there that might be at risk of a shortage.

Armed with these and other forewarnings about the likelihood of a shortage for specific products, providers and manufacturers can improve the resiliency of their supply chains and take actions to help prevent the shortage from occurring.

Data-driven assessment and decision making

The Medicine Supply Map identifies, characterizes and quantifies risk and resilience in the upstream medicine supply chain. USP leverages information about the locations of manufacturing sites producing active pharmaceutical ingredient and finished drugs, as well as other product information like ingredients, dosage form, market size, price and other factors based on its expertise and knowledge to characterize and quantify a medicine’s vulnerability. USP’s unique insights based on a multitude of data sources and expertise create a comprehensive view of the upstream supply chain that can highlight risk. This level of visibility enables a holistic understanding and anticipation of risk.

The Medicine Supply Map is built on a scalable, flexible platform. Its rich data set can easily be augmented with external data sources to customize queries that address unique information needs.

Sign up to receive more information about the USP Medicine Supply Map or to explore partnership opportunities.

woman looking at prescription drugs

Are my medicines at risk of a shortage?

USP did an analysis of structured product labels approved for use in the U.S. Read the blog for the importance of this information within the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Read the blog

making medicine supply chain more resilient

Drug supply chains: challenges, risks, and opportunities

The global medicine supply chain is complex, fragmented, and opaque. What are some of the challenges and how can the medicine supply chain become more resilient?

Read the findings

covid-19

Building adequate supplies of critical medicines

“Ensuring a resilient US prescription drug supply” pinpoints key supply chain issues and offers practical recommendations.

Read the report