Q&A: How Pharma 3PL Is Evolving Beyond the Pallet

Pharma's third-party logistics sector is no longer just moving pallets. As the industry shifts toward smaller patient populations, highly complex therapies, and direct-to-patient fulfillment, 3PLs are being forced to rethink their operational models from the ground up.

The scale of that pressure is hard to overstate. More than 4,000 gene, cell, and RNA therapies are currently in development.¹ These therapies demand a level of logistical precision, chain of custody rigor, and N-of-one coordination that conventional distribution infrastructure was not designed to support. Meanwhile, AI has crossed a threshold across pharma supply chains. A recent survey of 100 heads of supply chain found the industry has moved from AI ambition to practical deployment, with adoption highest in demand planning (59%), inventory optimization (57%), and logistics orchestration (49%).²

Danny Williams, president of channel management and 3PL at EVERSANA, has a front-row view of both shifts. In the following Q&A, he breaks down how pharma 3PL has evolved over the past five years, what CGT commercialization demands from logistics providers, and where the sector is headed next.

Watch Williams’ three-part video series with PC:

• How Pharma 3PLs Are Rethinking Their Role in Drug Commercialization
• How AI and CGTs Are Reshaping Pharma 3PL
• Danny Williams on What the Next Five Years Hold for Pharma 3PLs

PC: What have been the most consequential operational shifts in pharma 3PL over the past five years?

Williams: I think one of the biggest shifts that we've seen from a model standpoint is this move away from traditional transactional logistics, moving full pallets of product that ultimately end up at a full-on wholesaler, and then moved down through a retail chain or specialty distributor. As we get closer to personalized medicine, more and more of the therapies that are coming out are for smaller patient populations, all the way down to rare orphan disease designations. You're looking at a model that needs to be much more integrated. I think that is something that you see truthfully across the board. At EVERSANA, we've tried to be on the cutting edge or at least the leading edge of that, in not only recognizing that shift in the 3PL and the channel space, but also recognizing the more holistic impact on commercialization of pharmaceuticals as a whole, so that true end-to-end commercialization support.

If you look across the industry, I think it's now table stakes for manufacturers to recognize they need a full order-to-cash life cycle. They need to take into consideration gross and net implications. So it is simply more than just moving packages or pallets. I think almost everyone in the industry says it's not a package, it's a patient. And I'm proud to be part of the industry where I think that's true regardless of who the provider is. They recognize at the end of the day, our functions, our actions, and our activities improve healthcare for individual patients. But I do think the structural shifts over the last several years have really brought that more to the sight line, versus previously maybe being a little bit in the undercurrent.

Where does AI and predictive analytics in 3PL stand today versus five years ago?

The evolution and the speed with which I think all industries have embraced AI, but particularly the supply chain industry, truly is a night and day difference. Three to five years ago, people were dabbling in it – putting a toe in the water. It was largely experimental. It was primarily focused on pilots and betas and isolated use cases, and I think all of that's really changed. Today, we're seeing much more real, tangible, operational applications from forecasting demand, which goes back to that data visibility I mentioned a few moments ago, optimizing inventory, and identifying supply chain risks before they even happen. I think all of those things are necessary now within an AI-enabled platform.

By embracing it, it's not just how can we use it, but what are we doing with it so that we have guardrails in place to meet the industry standards. Here at EVERSANA we're trying to lead the shift. We're going to operationalize excellence with AI. And the question isn't whether the AI works. We know that it does. We've proven it out, but it's more about how can we quickly take it and scale it to drive a consistent value and a consistent outcome across our internal operations that ultimately benefit the manufacturer and then ultimately benefit the patient that we're all trying to be focused on ensuring has therapy.

As more biologics and cell and gene therapies reach the market, what are the biggest challenges 3PL providers face?

Everyone wants to talk about cell and gene therapies, and certainly there are a lot of them in development. They take on a completely different level of complexity from a logistics perspective. When you think about small molecule today, they're manufactured in lots or batches of a certain size and that amount of inventory is moved from that manufacturing site and kind of held in a shelvable inventory, if you will. It's later distributed on an as-needed basis based on forecasting.

When you start to look at cell and gene therapies, you truly are at personalized medicine. It's an N of one that the product is being created for, and in many cases, the patient's own DNA or own tissue is actually being harvested and utilized in the creation of what will be the therapy. So, you go away from this kind of large-scale operation to individual N of one movements that have to be highly coordinated. You're dealing with highly sensitive products, and I don't just mean that from a temperature standpoint, although that's true. With those strict temperature controls, you also have strict timing controls around how long from when the product comes out of the centrifuge and has been spun up before it needs to be administered to the patient for it to have the intended efficacy. There's a much tighter chain of custody requirement, and we're obviously talking about products that have a much greater financial value, so there's additional risk there that both the 3PL, the manufacturer, and in many cases the site of care have to negotiate. We at EVERSANA really started focusing in on this as the company was coming to be in 2018 and laid out some plans and included some investments to really help us to be in a position to best support manufacturers that have cell and gene therapies. And while some of that has come to fruition, we're still continuing to move ahead in terms of our investment strategy to make sure that we have the right infrastructure and the right level of precision in our operation to best support those manufacturers with those products. The industry is heavily investing here.

More manufacturers are shipping directly to patients. How is that changing how 3PLs operate?

I mentioned previously the modality shift from pallets of product moving to full-on wholesalers, as you get to smaller package types that are going to a specialty distributor or a specialty pharmacy or maybe even directly to the oncology clinic or the site of care. That shift from bulk distribution models to more individualized fulfillment models is truly key. A key distinction in 3PLs — we distribute products. We're typically shipping products to a licensed facility. That's a bit different from actually dispensing a product, which is what shipping directly to a patient involves, and that's where you have a pharmacist involved. For us as a 3PL, it's partnering within the EVERSANA businesses where we have our own specialty pharmacy, and partnering with them and other fulfillment providers to make sure that we can capture the patient that needs that product. Whether it's for convenience sake or whether it is to drive increased adherence to staying on therapy longer or staying compliant with their therapy, recognizing that removing some of those obstacles where the patient doesn't have to go to the local storefront pharmacy and pick that up, maybe they don't have to go to a certain institution and have that and actually have it delivered to their door is key. Now we're sending those products out to those points of dispensation.

It's not easy. There's an entire integration there that takes place with patient services. Telemedicine is obviously helping to enable that, which can add another layer of complexity to the model. The good news at least for us at EVERSANA is we've been doing this for a number of years. We've had a pretty well-established specialty pharmacy that actually was born out of the rare and orphan space, and they've had a very long and successful track record of ensuring that the patient at the end of that delivery is getting not just the medication and therapy that they need, but they have the support they need. They have the support when those questions need to be asked, or if it's a pediatric indication, can the caregiver call and get their questions answered? Do they make sure that their child, in this case, continues therapy and that there's no disruption of service?

I think at the end of the day, this is just a further evolution and example of how supply chain is becoming much more patient-centric, and that's changing how 3PLs have to operate on a day in and day out basis.

How do you see pharma 3PLs evolving over the next five years?

I do think technology like AI is going to continue to keep our industry accelerating at a pretty rapid pace. I think over the next five years, 3PLs are going to continue to evolve into more established components of a fully integrated data-driven model. Here at EVERSANA, we're focused on being a commercialization partner. I think companies are probably going to follow suit and try to best position themselves there to meet the needs of the manufacturer that they partner with to ensure the needs of ultimately the customer, be that a wholesaler, a retail chain, a specialty pharmacy, a site of care – their needs are met so that ultimately the patient's needs are met.

The companies that thrive are the ones that can bring together infrastructure, technology, and experience, as well as data into a single scalable model and execute at a really high level. In the end, it's not just about moving product anymore. It's about orchestrating a complex, regulated, data-rich supply chain that gets the therapies to the patients reliably and on time in a quick manner that connects the dots and ultimately delivers value for all constituents within the healthcare supply chain.

References

1. American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) and Citeline. Gene, Cell, & RNA Therapy Landscape Report: Q1 2026. Published May 2026. https://www.asgct.org/news-publications/landscape-report
2. WBR Insights. LogiPharma Playbook: 2026 Supply Chain & Logistics Insights. Published Q1 2026. https://logipharmaeu.wbresearch.com/downloads/logipharma-2026-playbook-report