Pandemic exposed global pharmaceutical supply chain’s fragility

How did generic pharmaceutical wholesalers fare during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the big three drug wholesalers that control 90% of the market? What is the state of the pharmaceutical supply chain now? What are some of the difficulties of shifting drug manufacturing production from countries like China and India back to the U.S.? 

These are some of the issues Christina Hultsch, a partner in Benesch’s Healthcare Practice Group, discussed with John Kingston, editor at large at FreightWaves, on Wednesday during Global Supply Chain Week. 

Hultsch, who represents generic drug manufacturers, said vulnerabilities existed in the global supply chain before the pandemic since three drug wholesalers control more than 90% of the pharmaceutical market. However, the disparity between generic manufacturers and the big three was exposed when the Chinese government shut down the entire Wuhan province, where many of her clients had their manufacturing facilities, in late January 2020.

“Initially, we thought, oh, a couple of weeks we’ll get through this, and then it turned into three, six months and not a whole lot was happening coming out of China, so that was the first big problem,” Hultsch said. “Then all the dominoes started falling after that, [and] even if you could get the drugs, you couldn’t really ship it across the ocean. You couldn’t find workers to do this or that, or you couldn't find trucks to load anything onto.”