How Pharma 3PLs Are Rethinking Their Role in Drug Commercialization

In the first part of his video interview with Pharmaceutical Commerce, Danny Williams, president of channel management and 3PL at EVERSANA, breaks down how the 3PL sector has moved away from traditional logistics models and what that means for manufacturers navigating an increasingly complex drug landscape.

The biggest shift Williams points to is the departure from transactional logistics, where the job was essentially moving full pallets of product to a wholesaler and letting it flow down through a retail or specialty distribution chain. That model made sense for a different era. But as more therapies are developed for smaller patient populations, including rare and orphan disease designations, the infrastructure supporting those products has to work differently.

What that looks like in practice is a more integrated approach, one that accounts for the full order-to-cash life cycle and the gross-to-net financial implications manufacturers are dealing with. Williams says that level of engagement is now table stakes across the industry. The job is no longer just moving packages or pallets.

Williams also reflects on a broader cultural shift taking hold across the 3PL industry. The prevailing mindset, he says, is that there is a patient at the end of every supply chain transaction. It sounds simple, but he believes the operational changes of the past several years have pushed that idea from background assumption to front-and-center priority for both logistics providers and manufacturers.

He also speaks to how his organization has approached that reality, working to connect channel management and logistics capabilities to the full commercialization picture rather than treating them as separate functions. For drug manufacturers bringing complex therapies to market, that kind of integrated thinking is increasingly what they need from a 3PL partner.