Taking Inventory

The August issue of Pharmaceutical Commerce now puts us into Q3 of 2024, and a notable pivot by the magazine to exploring an area of the pharma business engine that often falls under the proverbial radar: inventory management.

Shifting the topic into the spotlight, we present a deep dive this month into Big Pharma inventory performance. Editor Nicholas Saraceno sits down with Matthew Bardell, managing director of nVentic, a specialist inventory optimization company that for seven years now, has been gathering relevant data and compiling it all into an “Inventory Trends Benchmarking Report.” The analysis provides a glimpse into what is taking place with the inventory levels of some of the largest drug manufacturers. Bardell notes that pharma giants such as Pfizer are tapping cash influxes (from COVID-19 products, for example) to buy new companies—and when those acquisitions occur, the result is a significant impact on the "days inventory outstanding" value, a key measure of how efficiently and effectively a company is operating. In those cases, Bardell adds, inventories are normally marked up to reflect fair value until it's "run through the books over a period of time.”

In other coverage this month, Editor Emeritus Nicholas Basta details the thriving nature of drug wholesaling, even amid various industry undercurrents, such as reimbursement policy and drug importation wranglings and increasing manufacturer direct-to-patient actions in prescription drug distribution and delivery. Leading the wholesaler charge, of course, continues to be the industry’s Big 3 of McKesson, Cencora, and Cardinal Health. A natural key to their success, Basta says, has been the companies' ability to also dabble in other aspects of the healthcare ecosystem, whether that be by having their own specialty pharmacy or tackling clinical trial services head-on.

Meanwhile, in the fifth installment of his “Who Moved My Prescription?” series, Bill Roth of IntegriChain explores a multitude of factors that are contributing to a wave of pharmacy store closings across the US, including economic pressures, changes in consumer behaviors, and more. And in her latest look at healthcare reform, Amy Niles of the PAN Foundation previews key Medicare reforms that will take effect in 2025, one being the Part D cap—people enrolled in Part D plans (both traditional and Medicare Advantage) will not have to pay more than $2,000 in out-of-pocket costs for their prescription medications.

That's just a sampling of our content offerings this month. As always, thanks for reading.

— Mike Hennessy Jr., President and CEO, MJH Life Sciences