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Hand in hand
Clinical supply teams work hard to ensure the correct amount of medication is available where and when patients need it. Too little leads to trial delays, while too much creates unnecessary costs. Natalie Healey explains how companies can combine interactive response technologies, drug pooling and just-in-time logistics to make the guessing game a little easier.
Simply does it
In recent years, Sanofi has emphasised the importance of direct-to-patient trial supply in laying the groundwork for a more patient-centric clinical research model. Even so, until January, it was rarely implemented. Since then, Marc Sotty, the head of Sanofi’s studies and distribution unit for clinical supplies, has coordinated the company through an unprecedented rise in its use worldwide. He and Charles Gentile, Sanofi’s US site head, tell Tim Gunn how Covid-19 has impacted the temperature-controlled supply chain.
There and back again
As perilous as the journey might get, unused investigational products need to come home. Kevin Crawford, head of clinical operations at Tenax Therapeutics, has made drug reconciliation as much of a law as gravity. Andrew Tunnicliffe asks him about building strong partnerships and the logistical impact of the worst global pandemic for more than a century.
A matter of life and death
Clinical trial supply professionals have long understood the importance of remaining agile in keeping up with increasingly complex trial demands. Now, with Covid-19, pharmaceutical companies are using everything they’ve learned to ensure supplies of potentially life-saving vaccines and treatments get to clinical sites on time. Will Moffitt speaks to Ana-Zeralda Canals, senior clinical trial supplies manager at Debiopharm, about how technology is reshaping the supply chain, and what more can be done to overcome the logistical hurdles that inevitably arise.