Merck in India established its roots way back in 1885 with the first known agent being E Goehner, Bombay. In 1956, it produced first pharma product ‘Cosome’ cough syrup. Today, Merck India, with employee strength of more than 3,300, has an indigenous and robust R&D and manufacturing infrastructure in place. In September 2006, Merck KGaA announced its intent to purchase the majority of Serono and the Merck-Serono merger took place in September 2006. Merck Serono (EMD Serono in the United States and Canada) is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany. Merck Serono India is part of the Merck Serono global which generated 5,975 million Euros in total revenues for 2014. Merck Serono India specialises in the treatment of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, infertility, endocrine and metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases and other serious, life-altering diseases. Rakesh Shah, director, supply chain management, Merck Serono India, talks to Indian Transport and Logistics News (ITLN) about the supply chain transformation taking place in pharmaceutical industry.
What according to you are the changes taking place in the pharmaceutical supply chain evolution? In the end to end supply chain a lot of evolution has already taken place. Many regulations have been implemented and there is huge improvement in pharma supply chain. Lot of awareness has already taken place within the industry, within the customers and among distributors. Government is pushing the industry to strictly adhere to norms like label claims. What is on the label has to be followed until the product reaches the customer. But there is a lot of scope for improvement.
How do you manage to reduce the supply chain cost? The pinpoint is the forecast. Demand forecast is the first point of inventory management or supply chain cost. If you are touching that point then the rest is taken care subsequently. My job is demand planning; what is the accuracy level between what the marketing demands and what exactly it can sell. If it is improving, then all cost will decline. The way to reduce supply chain cost is inventory management and demand planning. Once you control these, your supply chain will go down. Secondly the focus should be on rationalizing your cost rather than reducing your cost.
How do you ensure supply chain visibility in your distribution system? Basically it is based on label claims. We monitor label claims at all levels very rigorously. Merck is conscious about the quality of our products and we very precisely monitor our products in transit as per our quality parameters.
In the changing scenario of global healthcare industry what are some of the precise things that you are doing to implement the demand and supply planning? We are focusing on our specialty products. Our focus is on global products in onco care and fertility. These are cold chain products and we have to monitor temperature. These are to be kept at 2 to 8 degree temperature and the temperature has to be maintained till the product reaches the patient. And we ensure that the quality is mainlined 100 percent and our quality assurance department ensure that no deviation takes place.
What is the mode of transport for your products? If the products are generic, then they go by sea. But it is based on customer requirements. All cold chain products exported go by air. More than 50 percent of cold chain products sold in India also go by air. And our logistics partners are approved vendors.