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Supply Chain Logistics

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Agreement allows educational institutions to access cold chain packaging solutions without the typical request for proposal process, supporting research, lab operations, and healthcare training.

Cold Chain Technologies, E&I Cooperative Services Strike Deal to Provide Schools with Expedited Access to Cold Chain Solutions

Using Data Loggers and Cold Chain Tech to Power Precision Pharma Delivery

, Heather Zenk, Cencora’s president of US supply chain, describes how today's distribution networks must seamlessly connect manufacturers to care sites that range from large academic centers to rural pharmacies and physician offices. This “last mile” delivery is essential because, as Zenk notes, “all healthcare is local.” Patients want access to advanced therapies close to home, and distributors play a critical role in making that happen.

A major focus in this effort is maintaining product integrity, especially for cold chain items that must be stored between 2–8°C. Innovations in cold chain management now go beyond temperature tracking; they include predictive maintenance of infrastructure such as freezers and compressors. Distributors not only monitor product temperature but also evaluate the performance and potential failure risks of the equipment that manages the cold chain environment.

Zenk emphasizes the importance of marrying manufacturer data with real-time logistics. For example, if a care site accidentally stores a cold chain product outside the optimal range for a short period, data from the manufacturer can often confirm whether the product remains viable. This responsiveness supports safe patient care and reduces waste.

Another important innovation is the use of reusable cold chain totes, which service over 90% of the US market. These require robust freezing systems and operational oversight to ensure readiness and reliability. Zenk underscores that preventing failure, rather than simply reacting to it, is the next frontier in pharmaceutical distribution. By using data-driven insights and predictive engineering, the distribution process becomes more resilient, ensuring that patients can access vital therapies without delay or compromise.

She also comments on the advanced technologies that are proving most effective in enhancing real-time visibility and operational efficiency; strategies organizations should prioritize to ensure compliance while minimizing disruptions for manufacturers and providers as the DSCSA compliance date approaches; lessons learned from recent drug shortages and global disruptions; the practical steps that can be taken in transportation, packaging, and warehousing to meet sustainability goals without compromising reliability or cost-effectiveness; and much more.

What advanced technology or data-driven solutions are proving most effective in enhancing real-time visibility and operational efficiency?

You can use binary data loggers, which might be in a, I'm moving a large quantity, a large quantity from point A to point B. Maybe I'm moving something warehouse to warehouse, so you can have a binary tracker. We use tools like Sensitech. We use data feeds—loggers that are feeding a system so that we can look at from end to end. We also are really tracking with third parties when we're using next-day air freight.

When I'm putting a very sensitive, high-dollar specialty pharmaceutical for an oncolytic or for a retinologist into the airspace, tracking that packaging in near real time with our third party also really matters. We know when it's in the air, when it gets to a hub, when it gets sorted, when it gets on a truck, and that entity in instance, really, the value that Cencora brings, is we're doing all of that in a 12- to 14-hour period of time. From the moment that I'm putting it into a cold chain pack out inside a cold chain refrigerated asset to track that package, all the way through to the site of care getting it, is under an 18-hour window to 24-hour window.

We know our cold chain materials have been qualified, certified, and we're doing all of that high quality work to know that can stay from 2-8°C up to 48 hours, up to 36 hours. We have different conditioning packages that last for different durations so we can meet the need. If I'm going to Guam, for example, we have to go to Guam. There's patients in Guam that we service. We know we need a 48-hour pack out there, so making the right cold chain asset match the service that we need is some blocking and tackling you just have to be able to do in the pharmaceutical supply chain in today's world.

In the second part of her Pharma Commerce video interview, Heather Zenk, Cencora’s president of US supply chain, explores how public-private collaboration, smarter sourcing strategies, and long-term manufacturer support are helping to fortify pharmaceutical supply chains against future crises.

Embedded Product Intelligence’s Role in Maintaining Cold Chain Integrity

, Kirsten Newquist, Identiv’s CEO, defines “smart pharma packaging” as the integration of technology into pharmaceutical packaging to enhance product identification, tracking, and patient engagement. She explains that packaging primarily involves embedding technologies such as RFID radio-frequency identification (RFID) or Bluetooth low energy (BLE) into pharmaceutical containers. These technologies assign a unique digital ID to each package, enabling serialization, which is critical for tracking and traceability across the global supply chain.

This digital ID allows stakeholders—from manufacturers to pharmacists and patients—to verify a drug’s authenticity at every step of its journey. This significantly reduces the risk of counterfeit drugs entering the system, as products can be authenticated upon delivery or administration. Newquist emphasizes that this kind of smart packaging not only strengthens supply chain security but also fosters better patient engagement, offering real-time data that can support dosage verification and proper usage.

Additionally, she notes a secondary dimension of smart packaging: smart drug delivery systems. These include technologically enhanced devices like auto-injectors, smart pillboxes, or connected syringes, which offer further layers of verification and ensure patients receive the correct medication and dosage. While this may go beyond traditional packaging, it aligns with the broader goals of improving safety, compliance, and confidence in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Overall, smart pharma packaging plays a crucial role in combating drug counterfeiting by improving transparency and traceability from production to patient use. By embedding intelligence into packaging and delivery systems, the pharmaceutical industry is better equipped to protect product integrity and ensure patient safety in an increasingly complex global supply chain.

Newquist also comments on the role embedded product intelligence plays in maintaining cold chain integrity, and why is this so critical for pharmaceutical safety and efficacy; how regulatory mandates, such as the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), influence the adoption of smarter packaging technologies across the industry; some of the biggest challenges pharmaceutical companies face in implementing this infrastructure, and much more.

What role does embedded product intelligence play in maintaining cold chain integrity, and why is this so critical for pharmaceutical safety and efficacy?

In addition to a digital ID, you can also embed sensors into the smart packaging, so you can embed temperature sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, and obviously, probably the most critical for cold chain management is temperature sensors.

What this really enables you to do—especially if you're using active-sensing technology in combination with RFID—is really be able to track in real time the temperature of these very expensive, organic pharmaceuticals that are really driving the industry growth today. I think it's absolutely a critical part of what smart packaging can do, and as you said, the rise of personalized medicine, the rise of all these organic compounds that are being developed by the pharmaceutical industry, they absolutely do require very careful monitoring throughout the supply chain.

I think this technology that enables not only the digital identification—but can also include sensors to monitor temperature—can be a real game changer, by ensuring that these drugs are being taken through the supply chain at the appropriate temperature. By getting this information in real time, if they see that it's not being maintained at the proper refrigeration level, there’s actually things that they can do to ensure it gets back into refrigeration to really maintain the compliance that they need for the right temperatures. We think that's a really important part of the smart packaging trends.

In the second part of her Pharma Commerce video interview, Kirsten Newquist, Identiv’s CEO, describes why this technology is essential for pharmaceutical safety and efficacy.

Analyzing Supply Chain Complexities 

, Alex Guillen, global pharma and life sciences director at Tive, highlights a significant concern: the rapid advancement of technology and its potential misuse by organized crime. While technology itself is not inherently dangerous, the pharma industry's slow adoption of emerging tech, such as IoT devices, sensors, and cloud-based integration, has made it vulnerable. Guillen points out that other industries have embraced these technologies much faster, enhancing their security and efficiency, while the pharma sector has lagged behind.

This technological lag creates a critical vulnerability for pharmaceutical companies, especially in supply chain management, where the risk of cyberattacks and system breaches is growing. The fast pace of technological development, coupled with the industry's lack of preparedness to defend against these threats, makes pharma particularly susceptible to malicious activities, including hacking and data manipulation. Guillen emphasizes that the industry's relatively slow uptake of advanced technologies like IoT and cloud computing has left them exposed to potential risks, especially from organized criminal groups leveraging these tools for nefarious purposes.

Ultimately, Guillen suggests that the key challenge for the pharma industry moving forward will be to rapidly enhance its technological capabilities and adopt a more proactive approach to security. By doing so, pharma companies can better protect themselves against the evolving landscape of threats, ensuring that their supply chains remain secure and resilient in the face of these emerging risks.

Guillen also comments on a 2024 report surrounding pharma supply chain security and visibility, what needs to be done in the United States to increase manufacturing output, and much more.

 recently released a 2024 report surrounding pharma supply chain security and visibility. Could you elaborate on some of the highlights of that report?

 I went through the report and for some of the responses that we had, I knew more or less that would be the trend, but for some of them I was quite surprised, actually. When we talk about, for example, one of the biggest threats that companies are seeing today is product tampering and repackaging as one of the major ones. I was trying to see, why product tempering and repackaging? If we acknowledge that the supply chain of pharma is one of the more robust today, I wouldn't expect the biggest concern being product tampering—something happening in the product—because it is an industry which, by definition, is extremely regulated and very secure. Looking back into what could the reason of these concerns could be, for example, on this point itself, it is getting more and more complex. Supply chain complexity that we have today is probably 10 times more complex than we had only 15 years ago. That complexity itself—whether it's components, APIs being manufactured in certain parts of the world, transported across the ocean, while having manufacturing spread in different parts of the world, and then having patients in another part of the world—makes this whole supply chain very complex and very difficult to manage. 

That supply chain has been getting more and more complex through time. Due to this complexity, I can imagine that it becomes more and more difficult to protect product itself because the industry relies more and more on third-party operators. If you take an example of freight forwarders; before, if they could do 70% of it, now, they probably can do 20%, 30% of it, and they have to rely on third-party to do the rest. They cannot be everywhere, so they go to all the other companies. That makes it more difficult for freight-forwarders themselves to actually manage the proper products in the best, proper way. The same applies to the repackaging side.

When I see repackaging, I'm also thinking, if 20 years ago, we had a lot of pharmaceuticals, now, the high value is in biologicals. Biologicals are more complex under packaging, under temperature conditions, and therefore, it becomes more difficult for companies to actually handle those. We saw it through COVID. When it came to the minus 70 degrees Celsius product, the product has to be transported at this temperature. It is industry knowledge right now almost half of that got lost or wasted because of not having the infrastructure to manage it. I think that as temperatures go lower, in terms of new medicine and new therapies, it's going to be a bigger challenge to be able to manage that supply chain, whether it is a handling of the product or whether it is the repackaging of the material.

I think that was one of the first ones that it is driving. The second one is regarding temperature control. We can see that the industry is supposed to be extremely robust in terms of temperature management. Why, all of a sudden, is it so concerned as the biggest risk? I can only associate it with a huge amount of new therapies that are coming on board. If you take, last year in 2023, there were about a handful of cell and gene therapies approved by the FDA, and we see the amount that are going to be approved in 2026 is in the tens of thousands of therapies. This is a huge step up, so I think that as it gets more complex with ultra-cold temperatures, the companies need to progress in infrastructure. That doesn't happen so quickly. I think those areas are quite the biggest, recognized threats from the people we interviewed. 

The last thing that I was surprised about is the concern about theft itself. I went in to dig into some of the information on some of that we know. Actually, the pharmaceutical industry does not have such a huge number of thefts compared to other industries like luxury. Nevertheless, this could represent a fear of the future. This case is not today, but it could happen, and why it could happen is a complexity that I think some customers are just having a hard time to grasp. So those are the three areas: two of them are quite clear—trying to figure out the reason—one of them I was surprised, but it could be just a fear for the future. I will need more analyzing to find out. Maybe at LogiPharma, we get more information on if this fear is really out there, but those are definitely the three areas that I was quite impressed with.

In the second part of his video interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Alex Guillen, global pharma and life sciences director at Tive, describes the highlights of a recent pharma supply chain security and visibility report that his company released.

Challenges Facing Pharma Supply Chains

Generally speaking, what immediate risks and challenges lie ahead for pharma supply chains here in 2025?

 The biggest threat for the industry right now is technology in a way, but it's not technology in itself, but rather, it’s the capability for the pharma industry to be reactive and to be able to counter the danger of organized crimes using technology. Technology is growing very fast, so as fast as it's growing, I think it's also important that companies learn how to protect themselves, defend themselves against that. We all know that even though pharmaceutical companies in relation to research and development, and manufacturing. They are quite slow in the edge of technologies, and in the supply chain, they have been quite slow. There are other industries that are much faster in terms of using IoT sensors, IoT devices, cloud information integration with different systems. 

There are other industries that are much more advanced this. The pharma industry has been quite slow in adopting that, which has actually made them more vulnerable to potential threats when it comes to technology—being able to hack systems or enter into systems. I think that's the biggest threat, but threat because of the lack of experience and lack of productivity by the industry itself.

In the first part of his video interview with Pharma Commerce Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Alex Guillen, global pharma and life sciences director at Tive, outlines the technological obstacles that lie ahead for the industry this year.

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