JUNE 20218 MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSIN MY OPINIONBy Mirko Senatore, Senior Director Global Supply Chain, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Pfizer [NYSE: PFE]The Pharmaceutical Industry is often considered as an empire populated by giants: big, powerful, and utterly slow. Traditionally focused on scientific Research and Development at the core of their activities, several Pharmaceutical companies grew in the course of the last century on the foundation of innovative therapies, often aimed at addressing some of the most poignant health challenges worldwide. With the landscape substantially changing in the last two decades, by example, through the advent of Generics firms and the flourishing of several biotech start-ups, so has the investment focus for the most established players in the market. Functions traditionally considered ancillary to the business surged to higher levels of relevance, including Supply Chain, which became front and centre in the overall pipeline lifecycle management.Supply Chain itself, on the other side, developed as a discipline in both corporate and academic environments, in a ride boosted by contextual factors including Globalisation, Outsourcing of non-core competencies, Mass customisation, Business Continuity Risk, Environmental pressures, Technology (Christopher 2011), among the others.In this context, Technology is of particular relevance, as several of the latest advancements seem to properly lend to adoption in the Supply Chain space. Large online retailers are leveraging Big Data to predict customer behaviours and provide purchasing Beyond Industry 4.0: The Pharma Supply Chain of the Future
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