How Specialty Growth and Cold Chain Demand Are Rewriting Distribution Strategy

In part 3 of a 3-part interview with our sister publication PharmTech, Cencora's senior vice president of global supply chain, Brent Wilhelm, closes out the conversation by examining how the changing composition of the drug pipeline is reshaping what distributors need from their infrastructure.

The shift is being driven by product mix. "70% of the new medicines being launched through this next year are in the specialty space," Wilhelm says, adding that more than half of those require cold chain handling — packaging and storage capable of holding 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, or colder, for the entire transport window. To keep pace, Cencora has put roughly $1 billion behind supply chain investments over the past year, aimed at handling and shipping needs more specialized than what the industry has typically managed at scale.

Product complexity isn't the only pressure point, Wilhelm also notes. Reimbursement remains a persistent and politically charged obstacle, one that directly shapes which therapies dispensers are even willing to stock and administer in the first place. On the operational side, he circles back to a theme that runs through the full interview series: building enough network nimbleness that product can flex with shifting demand, supported by AI and stronger data-sharing across the industry. He also points to a run of external shocks, like product shortages, geopolitical conflict, and disease events such as COVID-19, as the reasons Cencora has been rethinking how it holds inventory in the first place.

That rethinking has produced a new centralized distribution site dedicated to safety stock for critical inventories and medicines. "So we have inventory closest to the customer to serve the day-to-day, but we hold back a certain amount of inventory centrally so that we can ship that product dynamically across the country based on demand," Wilhelm explains.

Wilhelm's comments describe a supply chain strategy built around flexibility, balancing inventory positioned close to customers with centralized reserves that can be deployed dynamically as specialty and cold chain volume keeps climbing.

Watch the first and second installments of his interview with PC:

1. Cencora's Brent Wilhelm on the Inventory Paradox Behind Drug Shortages
2. Cencora's Brent Wilhelm on Closing the Final-Mile Visibility Gap