Pharmaceuticals Archives | 51风流News Center /tags/pharmaceuticals/ Company & Customer Stories | Press Room Tue, 17 Feb 2026 19:58:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition Is UniPhar鈥檚 Key to Scale Patient Access to Pharmaceutical Products /2024/12/uniphar-sap-s4hana-cloud-pharmaceutical-patient-access/ Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:15:00 +0000 /?p=230539 The pharmaceutical industry plays a critical role for global healthcare. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry, responsible for researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing pharmaceutical products and services addressing a vast and diverse range of health challenges.

To ensure that patients globally receive required medications and treatment on time, the management of manufacturing and distribution must be ultra-efficient, agile, and responsive.

With patient safety on the line and high-quality expectations, there is no room for error. 

One company that has mastered this balancing act is Ireland-based , a high-growth, diversified healthcare services company that provides distribution services for pharmaceutical products. The company works closely with manufacturers to offer third-party logistics (3PL) and fourth-party logistics (4PL) services to remain true to its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.

In the last decade, UniPhar has witnessed unprecedented growth and today delivers pharmaceutical products to more than 160 countries.

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Scaling Patient Access to Health Services With Cloud Tech

51风流and UniPhar: A 15-Year Partnership

UniPhar has grown organically and through acquisitions, and during this time its 51风流enterprise resource planning (ERP) landscape had become highly customized.

Two years ago, UniPhar鈥檚 board gave its Chief Enterprise Architect Piotr Wojdowski a mandate 鈥渢o rework the company鈥檚 digital core鈥 and deliver a digital transformation to unlock future growth while still safeguarding the highest of standards in the manufacturing and distribution chain.

Take the lead in your industry with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud

In the quest to find a software partner for its digital transformation, Wojdowski says UniPhar needed 鈥渁 partner and a software that is reliable and best in class鈥 to strengthen and future-proof the company鈥檚 ability to deliver on its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.

Wojdowski explains that there is an element of social responsibility to UniPhar鈥檚 mission. The patient requiring the pharmaceutical products or services 鈥渃ould be somebody鈥檚 relatives, it could be somebody鈥檚 mother, or it could be somebody鈥檚 son,鈥 making it even more important that the selected digital transformation software and partner was not only best in class but also reliable and trustworthy. 

鈥淣ot only had 51风流proved itself to be a trusted and reliable partner for UniPhar for 15 years,鈥 Wojdowski explains, but 51风流鈥渋s a standard in the health services sector, making integration of other services easier.鈥

51风流Advances UniPhar鈥檚 Technology and Talent

UniPhar’s goals are to grow horizontally, expand, and scale on demand. , , and play a pivotal part by, on the one hand, standardizing IT processes across the group and, on the other, managing distribution and inventories across different warehouses with 51风流EWM state-of-the-art warehouse management software, while using 51风流Datasphere for data management.

In a nutshell, says Wojdowski, 鈥渢he 51风流technology stack allows us to effectively advance our program quickly,鈥 using to build applications and extend 51风流solutions. 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) acts as an accelerator to move to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, helping UniPhar transform with confidence and speed using proven migration tools and enabling integration across applications.

SAP, and especially 51风流BTP, is not only a technology enabler but also allows UniPhar 鈥渢o innovate and attract the top talent as an organization because people want to come to work in an environment that is innovative, that allows you to try things, and that allows you to experiment,鈥 Wojdowski says.

Laying Foundations with 51风流Today for Tomorrow鈥檚 AI

UniPhar is currently in the implementation process and Wojdowski has a keen eye on the future, noting that 鈥渆venting, observability, and telemetry鈥 will form the basis of future artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements.

Data is critical in the pharmaceutical industry, he explains, and UniPhar 鈥渉as terabytes and terabytes of data that we are not physically able to analyze because it’s complex and massive.鈥 The plan is to migrate the data to a central repository and in the future 鈥減lug into an AI system to track patterns, track customer behaviors, track market trends, and react accordingly.鈥

Make a Challenge a Proof-of-Concept

51风流solutions are enabling UniPhar to innovate and step into the future on its own terms, with standardized processes, best practices, and foundations for AI technology that can scale and strengthen UniPhar鈥檚 mission to improve patient access to pharmaceutical services and products across the globe.

Wojdowski says 51风流seems to have a solution for every business requirement, but even though 鈥測ou may have to customize and change things that 51风流provides out of the box, at the end of the day it’s a full enterprise suite and you can run 51风流end-to-end if you wish.鈥

And Wojdowski鈥檚 advice for other companies planning a digital transformation? Challenges can become proofs of concept 鈥 there is no need to accept that something cannot be done. 鈥淏e brave, be daring, and ask questions. Challenge your partners and challenge yourself,鈥 he concludes.


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Scaling Patient Access to Health Services With Cloud Tech /video/scaling-patient-access-to-health-services-with-cloud-tech/ Mon, 02 Dec 2024 19:20:11 +0000 /?post_type=sap-tv&p=232104

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Scaling Patient Access to Health Services With Cloud Tech

Uniphar is a leading healthcare and pharmaceutical services company based in Ireland. Piotr Wojdowski, chief enterprise architect at Uniphar Group, shares how 51风流cloud technology allows the company to innovate, attract top talent, and reduce complexity. Learn more.

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Fusion Builds Standard Cold Chain Solution on 51风流BTP /2024/11/sap-btp-fusion-standard-cold-chain-solution/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 12:15:00 +0000 /?p=230110 Patient safety and environmental sustainability are driving cold chain innovation in the life sciences industry. Advanced technologies are essential for maintaining product integrity and ensuring safe, effective treatments worldwide.

Fusion Cold Chain Management Solution is available on 51风流Store

The biopharma industry faces substantial challenges in managing temperature-controlled logistics, leading to an estimated $35 billion in annual losses due to cold chain failures. , 50% of vaccines are rendered ineffective upon arrival due to uncontrolled temperature fluctuations. This not only poses risks to patient health, but also results in significant environmental and resource wastage. Every damaged vaccine represents a loss of raw materials, energy, and resources invested in production, transportation, and storage — ultimately contributing to environmental strain through increased waste.

Cold chain management is crucial for preserving the efficacy of temperature-sensitive products like vaccines and biologics. In the U.S., FDA regulations, including the CGMP and USP <1079> Good Storage and Distribution Practices for Drug Products, mandate temperature control to help ensure drug stability throughout the supply chain. Similarly, the EU Good Distribution Practice guidelines require strict temperature monitoring to maintain pharmaceutical quality, setting high standards for handling temperature-sensitive products.

To address these challenges, companies in the life sciences industry are leveraging advanced technologies with 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) to proactively manage temperature fluctuations.

51风流BTP enables seamless integration and data sharing across systems, providing critical insights for rapid, data-driven decisions that help maintain temperature stability. This strengthens supply chain resilience, minimizes product loss, and reduces environmental impact, helping ensure the safe and effective delivery of temperature-sensitive products.

Fusion鈥檚 Cold Chain Management Solution

In this context, Fusion Consulting has developed Cold Chain Management Solution (CCMS), a standard solution built on 51风流BTP in close collaboration with the 51风流product team for Life Sciences. The solution supports the integrity of temperature-sensitive products, including medicines, vaccines, and other perishables across the end-to-end supply chain. Any failure can result in temperature excursions and deviations, which threaten product efficacy and pose risks to patient safety while also leading to financial loss.

CCMS supports the management of products under controlled storage, preventing temperature excursions and deviations throughout the supply chain. Typically, manufacturing and supply processes track time out of refrigeration (TOR) and time In refrigeration (TIR), both of which accumulate the time a product spends within different temperature zones — cold, ambient, or frozen, for example — on the journey from the production line to the patient at the end of the supply chain.

Before Fusion CCMS, tracking TOR and TIR relied on a combination of custom-built in-house legacy systems, as well as error-prone manual paper-based processes. This led to complicated, time-consuming workloads, high error rates, re-work, and bureaucracy — all of which ultimately risks patient safety, product efficacy, and regulatory compliance.

CCMS digitalizes TOR and TIR tracking, offering full visibility of temperature conditions across the supply chain to proactively prevent anomalies. With automated workflows and smart alerts, it minimizes spoilage and patient risk, integrating with 51风流systems to enhance efficiency and safety through automated data from RFID and IoT devices.

鈥淭he Fusion Cold Chain Management Solution exemplifies the power of collaboration and innovation on 51风流BTP,” said Andreas Krummlauf, vice president of Life Sciences and Healthcare Product Management at SAP. “By addressing critical challenges in temperature-sensitive product management, it enhances patient safety, regulatory compliance, and reduces environmental impact. This solution perfectly extends our 51风流for Life Sciences solution portfolio, aligning with our strategy to offer comprehensive capabilities to our customers. We’re proud to support partners like Fusion in developing cutting-edge solutions that drive meaningful change in life sciences delivery.鈥

鈥淭he collaboration with 51风流is a prime example of how innovative strength and expertise can lead to literally life-saving solutions that transform the industry, such as the CCMS,鈥 said Fares Zaier, chief revenue officer of Fusion Consulting.

The described TOR information is one of the crucial attributes that need to be checked by the Quality department. This is relevant throughout the whole supply chain process, whenever a batch decision needs to be taken. Throughout the entire value chain, sharing this information is of utmost importance.

Having the 51风流Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences solution and Fusion CCMS both built on the 51风流BTP Platform enables seamless integration into the process flow. This in turn enables seamless integration of systems, helping ensure data consistency and optimizing processes.

By combining these powerful solutions, companies in the life sciences industry lay the foundation for future innovations. Ultimately, the close cooperation between Fusion Consulting and 51风流has enabled the development of solutions that not only meet current requirements, but also those of the future.

Looking to the future, Fusion plans to set up its industry consortium working with top life sciences customers to continuously taking their feedback and requirement into the product design and development.


Aladdin Mandishah is director of Product Marketing for Life Sciences at SAP
Marco De Lorenzo is vice president of Product Marketing for Life Sciences at SAP.

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Roche Connects Asset Data to Contextualize and Improve Every Decision /2023/08/roche-asset-data-contextualize-improve-decisions/ Mon, 07 Aug 2023 11:15:59 +0000 /?p=206277 In a recent webinar, Iago Accioli, project manager of Assets at Roche, discussed how the pharmaceutical company has been improving its asset management and maintenance processes from a broader supply chain perspective.

is one of the world鈥檚 largest biotech companies, a leading provider of in-vitro diagnostics and a global supplier of transformative, innovative solutions across major disease areas.

Cost as a Main Driver for Asset-Intensive Organizations

鈥淎s a pharmaceutical company, Roche was founded more than 100 years ago in Basel, Switzerland, with both pharma and diagnostics divisions. We are in the middle of an journey with the goal to harmonize business processes on all sites and divisions around the world,鈥 said Accioli.

To manage assets under volatile conditions effectively, just like other asset-intensive organizations, Roche focuses on reducing maintenance cost and increasing asset reliability, which are key to its customers and patients.

The challenge is 鈥渢he handover from original manufacturer to engineering to maintenance and how to interact with each other,鈥 explained Accioli. 鈥淲e resolve this with these business process harmonization initiatives.鈥

Risk Resilience as an Investment for the Future

51风流suggests three strategies to help companies manage their business holistically, including cost, speed, profit, customer service, and risk:

  • Connecting supply chains to the entire business so that information insight flows go quickly from operations to manufacturing, design, and into the business to respond to disruptions
  • Contextualizing information during the work process to equip users with technology to get real-time insights and make decisions during the business process to increase impact
  • Collaborating externally with suppliers, asset operators, OEMs, and logistics providers to ensure that information is flowing beyond the internal network to set up a risk-resilient business while mitigating risk

Closing the Loop Between Strategy and Execution

Managing costs and increasing equipment reliability is a major factor and closing the loop between asset strategy and maintenance execution, such as to make assets more reliable and connected to maintenance execution considering different asset type, is a big opportunity.

鈥淔ive to 10 years ago, reliability engineering became a shining topic at Roche, and we discussed where to start, how much we spend on maintenance, what our most important assets were, and where we should spend more energy and money. We standardized processes to classify our equipment into different asset criticalities 鈥 high, medium, and low – and, based on each category, we established a maintenance strategy,鈥 explained Accioli.

鈥淎fterwards, we looked for a tool that would best suit Roche given the amount of data. Now we have an asset and maintenance strategy in place that is reflected in our system. In 2019, we started harmonizing our processes and were pleased that 51风流solutions could support us,鈥 he continued.

In particular, Roche looked to:

  • , which helps with performing criticality evaluations directly in the 51风流system instead of spreadsheets. With criticality results reflected in the system, the maintenance strategy can result in preventive maintenance plans. 鈥淩oche is in the middle of the journey. No sites are live yet,鈥 said Accioli. Roche is also enabling access to its service providers to get design insights and improve collaboration.
  • , which enables maintenance plans and work orders to be accessible to maintenance technicians so that they can make instant material reservations and get access to maintenance manuals on mobile devices.

鈥淚 expect a significant decrease of maintenance execution as we can plan our work better thanks to a mobile-supported solution,鈥 said Accioli. 鈥淭he experience with the solution is quite good.鈥

Roche was already using 51风流at different sites with its own work order types and data model, but it was not automated and connected.

鈥淲e also intend to migrate to , a successor cloud-based application, where Roche鈥檚 enhancement ideas have been incorporated,鈥 explained the manager.

Connected Asset Data Helps Contextualize Business Decisions

For contextualizing every business process through the eyes of maintenance, it is necessary to converge enterprise IT data with equipment and sensor data to run analyses based on algorithms and machine learning technology. Accioli explained: 鈥淏eing able to schedule maintenance activities is a substantial improvement for maintenance organizations. To monitor both targets and results, we are using , which has many good capabilities. We are developing maintenance KPIs with the insights we get from听 artificial intelligence (AI) and rolling these back into the asset strategy and reliability process. These are particularly good tools.鈥

Effective Collaboration Across the Ecosystem to Build a Collaborative Supply Chain

鈥淔or Roche, sharing information and effective collaboration with asset providers and across our ecosystem is particularly important. Vendors and different equipment suppliers must exchange and collaborate on asset data. Operators and service providers should be able to use the network but also manage the work order process,” said Accioli.

To summarize, the key benefits of 51风流Asset Strategy and Performance Management and 51风流Service and Asset Manager Accioli sees are:

51风流Asset Strategy and Performance Management:

  • Defining which maintenance strategy applies to which classification of equipment
  • Maintaining assessments in the system
  • Generating criticality based on assessments
  • Reflecting reliability-centered maintenance in the system, including decision trees and supportive templates

51风流Service and Asset Manager:

  • Being a digitized, automated, paperless solution
  • Being able to work offline
  • Having all maintenance data at hand in one place

Listen to the webinar recording . In addition, watch this to learn how to maximize asset health and performance with 51风流Intelligent Asset Management solutions and read what . To know more about the role of service and asset management in your industry, .


Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.
Top photo credit: Roche

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51风流S/4HANA Cloud Is Digital Foundation for Lifesaving Medicines of the Future /2023/06/sap-s4hana-cloud-digital-foundation-zymeworks/ Wed, 14 Jun 2023 11:15:56 +0000 /?p=205424 Biotechnology innovator has no time to waste in its quest to save the lives of people who are battling rare cancers and other serious diseases. Spurred by fast-growing global expansion plans, the ambitious company, which invents medicines for people who have difficult-to-treat illnesses, decided to modernize its enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems on one cloud-based platform with SAP.

鈥淲e are driven by our mission to make a meaningful difference for people worldwide who are impacted by difficult-to-treat cancers and other serious diseases,鈥 said Chris Astle, chief financial officer at Zymeworks. 鈥淲e chose because it鈥檚 a trusted solution for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, proven to manage the complexities we face around pricing, manufacturing, supply chain logistics, and more. We鈥檙e building the bedrock for our growth in a dynamic industry with ever-changing market conditions.鈥

A 2023 , Zymeworks went live with a broad range of solutions through RISE with SAP. I sat down with Astle during this year鈥檚 , where he filled me in on how 51风流solutions are essential to the company鈥檚 expansion plans. He told me that Zymeworks expects significant resource savings from replacing manual, multi-step processes with self-service automation, gaining efficiency improvements from 50% up to 90% respectively across operational planning, HR, and invoicing.

Digital Platform Creates Automation Efficiencies

Working on new drug development and clinical trials for oncology treatments, Zymeworks is tackling one of the most challenging healthcare markets given the numerous kinds of cancers, sub-types of cancers, and patient populations. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with operations in the U.S., Zymeworks is expanding to Europe and Asia. Astle was well aware of what the company鈥檚 finance, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), supply chain, procurement, and HR teams are up against as the volume of transactions, currencies, and compliance mandates increase with geographical build-out.

鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly exploring therapeutics for patients where there鈥檚 a high unmet need with few treatment options to date,鈥 said Astle. 鈥淎s we grow, we鈥檒l need to manage greater transactional volume, risk, and complexity. Having end-to-end, integrated data company-wide will automate processes and provide the digital foundation of the company. Once the systems are fully operational and everyone is trained, we expect a significant reduction in time to prepare budgets, close the books, and manage HR onboarding and reporting. This will free people up to focus on more strategic, value-added activities.鈥

Data Transparency Supports Financial and Healthcare Governance听

Although currently in the clinical development phase, Zymeworks went live with 51风流solutions to be better prepared to meet global industry mandates, including external audits as products are launched.

鈥淓mbedding compliance within our processes reduces risk and gives us more flexibility and agility,鈥 said Astle. 鈥淲e interact with healthcare leaders, as well as government policymakers and auditors. With , we can accurately track and report our spend with partners like physicians, grant writers, and advisory boards. are our primary source for travel and expense data, helping monitor compliance with industry regulations.鈥

Integrated Data Has Company-Wide Business Results

People are at the heart of Zymework鈥檚 innovation and using for the company鈥檚 self-service HR will help bring extended benefits throughout the company.

鈥淲e鈥檝e developed an organizational hierarchy matrix with well-defined roles for promotions and career planning,鈥 said Astle. 鈥淲e鈥檝e set up workflow automation based on someone鈥檚 role, assigning tasks accordingly, whether it involves onboarding new hires, regulatory sign-offs, or purchase order approvals. Automation from integrated data helps people make better decisions faster, increasing efficiencies from standardized processes as we grow.鈥

Working with 51风流Bolsters Continuous Journey to Best Practices

Zymework鈥檚 relatively small size compared to industry behemoths in no way detracts from the value of the company鈥檚 relationship with SAP. In fact, the organization has the best of both worlds 鈥 best practices with less customization.

鈥淚mplementing a tier 1 solution like 51风流was a big training opportunity for our finance team and the wider organization,鈥 said Astle. 鈥淲e鈥檝e acquired best practices from the largest industry leaders and can go with a more out-of-the-box solution that鈥檚 already standardized and fit for purpose, requiring almost no customization.鈥

Future-Proofing the Business with Adaptability

Despite the daunting task ahead developing advanced treatments, Zymeworks is well-positioned for growth, committed to ongoing investments for innovation.

鈥淚t鈥檚 strategically important to be diverse to reduce company risk, and we are looking at other therapeutic areas, too. We have some really innovative science and fantastic scientists, and we鈥檙e not afraid of the challenge,鈥 said Astle. 鈥淲ith our move to SAP, we鈥檝e laid the foundation for the future growth of our company. We can focus on achieving our vision, innovating to bring new medicines to market for patients in need.鈥

To hear more from customers on their digital transformation journey with SAP,听.


Susan Galer is a communications director at SAP. Follow me @smgaler.

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GC Biopharma: Flexible and Integrated HR Portal Improves User Experience /2023/03/gc-biopharma-hr-portal-improves-user-experience/ Fri, 03 Mar 2023 12:15:17 +0000 /?p=203164 Since its establishment in 1967, GC Biopharma has become one of Korea鈥檚 leading pharmaceutical companies with a product portfolio specializing in blood products, including the world’s third successfully developed hepatitis B vaccine.

To further expand its global business, GC Biopharma selected 51风流SuccessFactors solutions for its human resources (HR) transformation.听Its legacy HR portal was developed long ago, and its IT team encountered many challenges in responding rapidly to employees鈥 change requests. Employees did not access the legacy HR portal often due to its inferior user experience and limited access to the PC environment.

To improve the situation, GC Biopharma leveraged to design and implement its new HR portal, which serves as the main entry point for all employees to access the corporate HR systems through both PCs and mobile devices.

New HR Portal Designed along SAP鈥檚 Human-Centered Approach to Innovation

The 51风流AppHaus team worked with customer representatives by first listening to the end users and accurately defining the as-is situation. The joint project team investigated the HR business scenarios for several personas, including employees, managers, and executives, and discovered their needs and pain points. As a result, the team defined a set of essential HR tasks, such as time and attendance management, talent recruitment, and employee training, and validated the end users鈥 expectations for the new HR portal.

51风流AppHaus designed various cards on 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone tailored to the customer’s needs and developed user interface (UI) integrated cards with the 51风流T&I Platform Adoption and Advisory team. Through this journey, the customer team was able to get various ideas for configuring their own HR portal.

鈥淲e鈥檙e delighted that 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone now serves as the main entry point to our whole HR system. Mobile access is now available and the system is more responsive to the needs of our employees,鈥 says Youngwoon Kim, corporate human resources officer at GC Biopharma.

Based on 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone and (51风流BTP), the solution enables a personalized employee experience when using the HR portal as well as a rapid response to users’ change requests.

Easy Maintenance Thanks to 51风流BTP

51风流BTP supports easy maintenance without code development by utilizing the appropriate application with 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone based on employee requirements. Also, flexible portal configurations for HR personas 鈥 that is employees, managers, and executives 鈥 for individual HR tasks are available.

Click to enlarge.

Moreover, 51风流SuccessFactors Work Zone allows IT users to develop in the PC environment and seamlessly adapt to the mobile app without any further development. Therefore, end users can easily access HR-related information on both PC and mobile devices, which increases its accessibility and utilization.

The new HR portal went live in October 2022, ushering in both improved functionality and user experiences for more than 2,300 GC Biopharma employees.


Euree Hawer is a senior UX designer for 51风流AppHaus Korea.

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Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Fight Fake Drugs with Intelligent Supply Chains /2022/12/pharmaceutical-manufacturers-drug-supply-chains/ Thu, 01 Dec 2022 12:15:21 +0000 /?p=200993 As the pandemic rages on and challenges like and disruptions continue, digital intelligence is the one thing that industry leaders can count on for competitive advantage. predicted that by 2023, 75% of life sciences manufacturers will invest in intelligent supply chain solutions to enable resilience and prevent future disruptions during health emergencies such as COVID-19.

Increasing regulations are also sparking digital innovation across life sciences. For example, organizations are required to share updated supply chain data with trusted partners for compliance with the final phased-in regulations of the . Initially passed in 2013, the latest batch of requirements from this act will require pharmacies, wholesalers, and manufacturers to track and report drug shipments for legitimacy between authorized trading partners. That鈥檚 where Spherity Credentialing Service CARO comes in, an app that provides updated information proving a dispenser鈥檚 trading partner status.

鈥淲hen a pharmacist in a tiny dispensary in North Dakota has suspicions about a received drug shipment, they send a verification request to a global pharmaceutical manufacturer that has numerous wholesalers in between them and the pharmacy,鈥 said Dr. Oliver Nuernberg, chief product owner of Life Sciences at SAP. 鈥淎utomating the credentialing process builds transparency and trust between indirect partners, immediately surfacing the pharmacy鈥檚 credentials as an authorized trading partner. This saves time and costs with greater information accuracy and fewer delays, strengthening an organization鈥檚 ability to meet DSCSA regulations.鈥

Available on , Spherity Credentialing Service CARO is integrated with听, a cloud-based network solution that helps organizations comply with other provisions of the U.S.听DSCSA. For example, drug traceability is another U.S. DSCSA mandate. Pharmaceutical manufacturers can also use the information hub to help law enforcement trace drug shipments by serial numbers, supporting audits that help keep counterfeit medications out of the supply chain.

Intelligent Automation Strengthens Health of Drug Supply Chain

Spherity functions as a digitally encrypted wallet that captures and stores a dispenser鈥檚, or any other trading partner鈥檚, verified identity data, including address, notarized documents such as articles of incorporation, as well as updated U.S. state and DEA license information. By digitizing previously manual data collection and distribution tasks between systems, the app eliminates historical time lags that often resulted in outdated information.

鈥淚n the past, information about trading partner status was manually imported on a monthly basis from spreadsheets provided by third parties. An order might come from a wholesaler or dispenser whose license expired or was revoked weeks or even months ago,鈥 said Nuernberg. 鈥淓lectronic credentialing surfaces accurate information much faster, helping organizations automatically prove compliance with regulations, including license type as required to dispense various drugs.鈥

Once a pharmacy鈥檚 identity is verified in their digital wallet, pharmaceutical companies would also be informed on an ongoing basis if the state or federal agency didn鈥檛 renew that license or revoked it for any reason.

Verified Partner Identity for Supply Chain Safety

Verifying a dispenser鈥檚 identity isn鈥檛 as easy as it sounds. Drug supply chains are complex, involving manufacturers, wholesale distributors, re-packagers, and logistics companies long before the goods reach pharmacies for dispensing. Having an app that automatically verifies a dispenser鈥檚 identity in real or near real time is designed to support regulatory compliance and help make drug supply chains more secure. Anticipating the 2023 regulations, some global pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesalers have been testing the app with measurable results.

鈥淯sing the app, organizations have told us that they can securely and more easily verify trading partners and generate audit-ready records,鈥 said Georg J眉rgens, manager of Industry Solutions at Spherity. 鈥淲ith electronic interactions, they can trust that a trading partner is legitimate because due diligence has been conducted that proves identity. The app is easy to get up and running and has already increased efficiencies.鈥

J眉rgens added that the app鈥檚 interoperability with different systems is designed to help meet regulatory mandates around electronic data sharing, easing collaboration between trusted partners along the clinical supply chain.

Digitalized Business Innovation

Eliminating counterfeit drugs in the legitimate supply chain is just the beginning of what鈥檚 possible in a fully digitalized life sciences supply chain. Pharmaceutical companies will be able to bring in and ramp up new, trusted suppliers faster. Intelligence will only grow with greater automation for business and patient value.


Follow me @smgaler.

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California鈥檚 Low-Cost Insulin Is Symptom of Lifesaving Innovations to Come /2022/10/life-sciences-innovations-to-come/ Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:15:00 +0000 /?p=200048 California鈥檚 plans to manufacture its own insulin is the most recent example of a industry in the throes of tremendous upheaval. Imagine if every hospital could manufacture medications without leaving the building, producing regulatory compliant 3D-printed medications and medical devices on demand. How about if developing countries could quickly set up turnkey, self-contained medical production operations to quickly dispense vaccines when diseases flare up?

These were among the innovations that Michael Schmidt, cofounder and executive board member of , shared when he spoke at a recent SAP-sponsored event with customers and other partners about the transformational opportunities facing the life sciences industry.

鈥淢oving manufacturing to the point-of-care will disrupt the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain with the patient on the first floor and the manufacturing facility in the basement,鈥 said Schmidt. 鈥淲ith production downstairs, you鈥檝e reduced your physical supply chain to an elevator, limiting costly risks from transportation delays or patient no-shows and disrupting packaging norms. Self-contained production facilities for vaccines are another innovation, supporting the fundamental right to people鈥檚 health in developing countries.鈥

Headquartered in Switzerland, Tenthpin is a global management consulting firm focused on life sciences companies worldwide. Drawing from his firm鈥檚 experience working with pharmaceutical and biotech organizations, medical device manufacturers, clinical researchers, and other clients, Schmidt shared an intriguing look into what happens when life sciences ecosystems are driven by health outcomes and market demands shift from patient treatment to prevention, diagnostics, and cure.

Cloud-Based Collaboration Is Central to Outcome-Driven Healthcare

disruptions 鈥 with positive results 鈥 are a symptom of the transformational journey that every life sciences organization is undergoing. In an environment where health outcomes matter most, life sciences companies are moving business models towards value-based care, conducting research and evaluating drugs and treatments based on comparative effectiveness and risk-based pricing. In this context, California鈥檚 decision to make its own insulin shows the dramatic impact across healthcare value chains as power shifts to governments and payers intent on reducing costs.

Talking during the 51风流life sciences event, Schmidt saw cloud-based platforms as critical to bringing experts together for faster innovation and mentioned COVID-19 vaccine development as an example of competitors working together towards a shared objective to save lives.

鈥淟ife sciences organizations are collaborating to connect data across a patient-centric value chain for early engagement of partners in areas like research and manufacturing,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e believe there will be more opportunity-driven collaborations in the future. For example, the supply chain changes fundamentally with compressed timeframes between research, production, and delivery. You want to be set up from an organizational perspective to allow for more strategic ad hoc and cross-industry collaborations such as ramping up new facilities to adapt your manufacturing footprint in response to ongoing disruptions.鈥

Data Sharing for Human-Centered Healthcare

As the healthcare industry explores advanced therapies, personalized treatments, and services, there鈥檚 a shift from traditional batch to continuous manufacturing. New technologies provide greater access to real-time patient data for developing more effective drugs with improvements in the patient experience and health results. However, these market ramp-ups stress existing business and treatment models.

鈥淧ersonalized treatments mean that organizations suddenly get much closer to patients,鈥 said Schmidt. 鈥淭he human health experience is all about connecting a tremendous amount data 鈥 which room of the house you were in when you took the medication and what you had for breakfast. Technology allows us to collect, analyze, and reuse detailed data.鈥

Schmidt urged companies to consider the next evolution of systems, investing in data governance and data quality now for automation and other innovations built on cloud-based platforms.

鈥淭he life sciences value chain of tomorrow is data-driven and patient-centric, putting technology at the heart of industry transformation,鈥 said Schmidt. 鈥淥nce you have a stable system core, you鈥檒l be well-positioned for the future growth of markets such as cell and gene therapies for personalized treatment regimens.鈥

The Next Treatment Innovation Is One Elevator Ride Away

Organizations in the life sciences industry face numerous other challenges such as imminent patent expirations and increasingly complex regulations, including waste reduction. But technology has a major role in all areas, for instance, speeding up the development of advanced treatments and regulatory approvals so innovations reach patients faster. Schmidt advised companies to connect digital transformation plans to high-end strategic innovations expected years down the road, as well as tomorrow.

鈥淭he life sciences industry is at a crossroads, and we need to reimagine its future,鈥 he said. 鈥淭he next disruptors are companies that may have a portfolio of investments, or are partnering with different networks, using external manufacturing and other innovations, creating competitive IP in new ways. There鈥檚 a significant opportunity for established and startup entrants that are collaborating with connected data to better understand how human body works and prevent and cure disease.鈥

California鈥檚 trailblazing efforts to manufacture a drug is just one way that the life sciences industry is getting a healthy makeover. Let鈥檚 hope industry leaders heed the call to collaborate in new ways for more life-saving innovations.


Follow me @smgaler.

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Industry Innovation: Turning Supply Chains into Hot Spots for Meaningful Change /2022/10/industry-innovation-supply-chains-meaningful-change/ Thu, 20 Oct 2022 11:15:25 +0000 /?p=199867 When companies talk about innovation, they look at new ways to make their products, services, processes, and operations more competitive. But every once in a while, an idea transforms how an entire industry runs, opens up a new business sector, and makes people鈥檚 lives safer, healthier, and happier.

Industry innovation has been a fascinating topic over the last few years. It鈥檚 impossible to ignore how companies create new offerings and experiences that dramatically shift how an industry 鈥 or in some cases, multiple industries 鈥 operates and how people live. Such groundbreaking changes are usually built with an appreciation of existing data and technologies and through a desire to do things better in terms of product safety, supply chain optimization, and business finances.

I鈥檝e been very fortunate to experience the power of such industry innovation through the Customer Innovation & Maintenance team as part of the Customer Solution Support & Innovation organization at SAP. For years, we have worked with various organizations to navigate existing crises, address emerging challenges, and deliver new opportunities for the world. In this article, I will discuss three of our latest projects.

Saving People鈥檚 Lives by Reducing Counterfeit Drugs

One prime example of our efforts is tackling a global menace that impacts the entire world: counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Many falsified or substandard medicines contain dangerous ingredients, such as heavy metals, highway paint, and rat poison, that worsen people鈥檚 health conditions and create new diseases. As a result, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than yearly from these snake oil cures.

For years, governments have initiated legislation and regulations to criminalize and control the production and distribution of counterfeit drugs. However, my team discovered that the lack of a rigorous, universal network makes it difficult to curtail the problem often hidden within complex supply chains and sophisticated packaging.

Based on input from 51风流customers in the life sciences industry and working with 51风流industry experts on this international challenge, we developed . The industry network hub enables pharmaceutical firms to share product information for traceability and verification across the supply network and with government regulators. Running on and leveraging 51风流Blockchain Business Services, it is the first public-cloud, industry-specific business network used by more than 45 pharmaceutical firms, over 1,500 trading partners, and 80% of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.

But our contribution to the fight against counterfeit drugs is far from over. We are working toward adding aid workers from organizations 鈥 such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders 鈥 to the hub so they can verify critical medicines and vaccines on the fly in low- to middle-income countries. This innovation is accomplished by integrating the hub into the application.

Accelerating the Development of Lifesaving Therapies

Another barrier to delivering large quantities of medical therapies quickly, efficiently, and safely is the structure of the traditional clinical supply chain. During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain resilience was highlighted as a critical requirement for providing lifesaving vaccines, prophylactics, and therapies created through industry-wide collaboration and a patient-centric focus.

To accelerate clinical R&D and time to value, my team worked with Roche, Tenthpin, and more than 25 additional customers and vendors connected to the pharmaceutical sector. Together, we reimagined clinical supply operations and brought to life a digital transformation of the entire life sciences ecosystem by developing the solution.

This next-generation cloud solution enables faster clinical supply cycle times, fewer inventory overages, and better-informed decision-making by providing accurate insights into forecasted demand and clinical site stock levels. It is also a milestone in the industry鈥檚 adoption of the cloud, facilitating end-to-end process operations and visibility to plan, source, manufacture, distribute, and reconcile supplies for clinical R&D. In addition, the solution helps address the blinding and randomization needs of clinical trials during the manufacturing, packaging, labeling, and shipment of clinical supplies to hospitals and clinics.

Meeting Financing Needs to Boost Growth

In addition to counterfeit drugs and the need for resilience, supply chain volatility and turbulence is providing the impetus for innovation. This reality is prompting capital investments including end-to-end due diligence and product tracing services; machines and plant setups that improve environmental impacts; and networks for finding, vetting, and onboarding new suppliers quickly.

Incorporating all these innovations into business operations 鈥 regardless of ecosystem size and geographic reach 鈥 requires money that many companies may not have immediately on hand. But to meet those finance needs, businesses and banks need to connect with each other smoothly, quickly, and securely without introducing more work and complexity to finance and treasury processes.

By delivering the solution, we play a key role in increasing the reliability of relationships between companies and their banks. Built on top of 51风流Business Technology Platform, the solution creates a multi-bank, digital channel between each party鈥檚 enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to embed Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard (EBICS) and SWIFT connectivity into the remote data transfer of payment transactions.

In return, treasury operations can be refined and simplified by updating payment status and cash positions in real time across business and bank ERP systems. 51风流Multi-Bank Connectivity can automate manual, error-prone steps associated with the execution and reconciliation of payments, order-to-cash applications, and order entry documents 鈥 helping to increase control, efficiency, and transparency.

Helping the World Run Better 鈥 One Innovation at a Time

The news headlines running across our screens every day prove that industry innovation is far from done. Unfortunately, no person, organization, or business carries the ultimate wisdom to solve every problem single-handedly. But if industry practitioners, business and technology experts, thought leaders, and inspired problem-solvers collaborate toward a common goal, a better future can be possible for everyone.

It is this vision that guides my leadership of Customer Solution Support & Innovation. My team of experts continuously looks for opportunities to do better for our customers, business, and global neighbors. And with the feedback and knowledge shared during every interaction, we look forward to working side by side with our customers and partners to provide the digital capabilities they need to make the world a better place 鈥 today and in the future.


Andreas Heckmann is executive vice president of Product Engineering and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at SAP. Follow him on and .

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Turbocharging Batch Release Processes in the Life Sciences Industry to Enable Resilience and Scalability /2022/07/turbocharging-batch-release-processes-life-sciences/ Wed, 27 Jul 2022 11:15:54 +0000 /?p=198247 The ultimate goal of any life sciences company is to produce accurate, high-quality products to save patients鈥 lives and implement sustainable practices to reduce resource consumption and address climate change. Therefore, proper quality processes must be in place to control possible manufacturing issues, chemical contamination, the presence of impurities, and beyond.

The batch release process is one such process 鈥 a necessary stopgap to ensure life sciences products were produced according to manufacturing requirements and meet the closely controlled regulations around distribution. During batch release, quality assurance and operations teams can identify deviations before the product is released to the market.

A non-compliant batch can have an irreversible and unforgiving impact on valuable human lives and the environment. A faulty product can cause physical harm or even death. Because people’s lives are at stake, the life sciences industry needs to be strictly regulated.

In 2021, there were 78 product recalls reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Failure to effectively manage this process is not only critical to protecting lives but can introduce a potential health hazard to patients, requiring a batch recall. According to , a single warranty or recall process can cost the manufacturer up to US$600 million. This does not include other recall-related costs like lawsuits.

A product recall can cause consumer and investor confidence to fall, resulting in a decline in revenue and stock prices. For example, the same study estimated a 13% drop in stock prices听across the industry, triggered by product听recalls. In fact, the total annual cost for the life听sciences industry can exceed $5 billion. That听doesn’t even consider the credibility costs.鈥

Such recalls can have huge costs to a life sciences company and its brand reputation, in addition to inflicting harm to patients and damage to the environment due to waste.

Based on 51风流working with leading pharmaceutical companies, it takes a working group of quality control professionals around 40 hours to determine the release decision for one single batch. While vital to protect consumers, this process requires a significant amount of time, can impact a business鈥 overall supply chain, and requires consistent manual collection and evaluation of cumbersome data from different siloed systems. This slows down the overall supply chain performance and order fulfillment lead time, resulting in higher levels of inventory carrying costs.

With growing market trends demanding faster supply chains, highly personalized batch-size-one types of products, and more tightened regulations, it is critical to take steps to de-risk, speed up, and scale up the batch release process and do so without compromising quality or safety.

51风流has undertaken the development of an industry standard together with two leading global pharmaceutical companies. 51风流realized that the process deserves not only closer scrutiny, but an end-to-end re-engineering to replace the inefficient, legacy, labor-intensive manual process with a digital platform, eliminating manually pooling information from non-integrated systems.

In this context, 51风流has launched the 51风流Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences solution, which helps address life sciences organizations鈥 unmet market need for transparent, flexible, integrated, and efficient batch release management.

51风流Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences is an听innovative cloud solution developed on听. It听is听designed to semantically integrate with听existing heterogeneous 51风流and third-party solutions 鈥 both听on premise and in the cloud 鈥 with a unique听integration data model听that can听help make faster听and more secure batch release decisions.

It receives the release check data required to release a batch from various source systems, automatically evaluates it against predefined criteria, and visualizes the results into a cockpit to enable a faster and more intuitive decision-making process.

Based on SAP鈥檚 leading technology, the solution is a digital hub that helps provide qualified persons and release-responsible persons with the intelligent tools to streamline and simplify the full batch release procedure to make fast and accurate batch usage decisions. The reduction of review cycle times enables scalability through data collection and evaluation automation while retaining compliance. Digital batch release supports preventive actions to enable a life sciences company to produce the right product the first time, minimizing the CO2 footprint associated with replenishment and recall of a non-compliant batch.

With the solution, organizations can:

  • Reduce the risk of quality non-compliance by standardizing and simplifying the batch release process, reducing the risk of human errors.
  • Reduce compliance and risk management costs by automating and simplifying the time-consuming and labor-intensive legacy batch release activities.
  • Reduce order fulfillment lead time by enabling a faster batch release cycle time, thanks to automation and standardization.
  • Reduce inventory carrying costs and the environmental impact of excessive inventory by reducing the required level of inventory with lower order fulfillment lead times.

The 51风流Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences solution is the latest life sciences innovation from 51风流and serves as an important pillar in the 51风流for Life Sciences solution portfolio. 51风流Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences helps extend the enablement of the Intelligent Enterprise by bringing software intelligence to the core process of batch release for life sciences products.

Learn more about 51风流Batch Release Hub for Life Sciences in the听 and this .


Aladdin Mandishah is global industry solutions manager for Life Sciences at SAP.

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Built from a Consortium of Life Sciences Industry Experts, 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management Now Available /2022/05/sap-intelligent-clinical-supply-management-available/ Tue, 10 May 2022 13:07:27 +0000 /?p=196264 The life sciences industry has been at the forefront in accelerating recent innovation and digital transformation. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for resilient supply chains and the potential for industry-wide collaboration and patient-centricity to accelerate clinical research and development (R&D) and time to value.

According to a McKinsey report, the median , with poor forecasting and planning attributed as the primary reasons. Using a data-driven approach to improve demand forecast accuracy and reduce overage could optimize costs, leading to annual savings of more than $100 million.

This highlights a significant opportunity to reimagine the current clinical trial supply management (CTSM) processes and adopt emerging technologies.

Currently available CTSM solutions are either highly customer-specific consulting solutions or highly fragmented; they do not offer end-to-end or out-of-box integration to clinical supply processes and core supply chain 51风流S/4HANA modules. In addition, the 51风流portfolio extends to include partner solutions the address industry-specific needs.

In this context, 51风流has launched 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management, which addresses life sciences organizations’ unmet market need for transparent, flexible, integrated, and efficient clinical trial supply management.

SAP, as well as Roche, Tenthpin, and a consortium of more than 25 life sciences organizations, contributed by providing regular feedback into the design and development of the solution. This customer engagement initiative is defining the industry standard for tracking clinical studies 鈥 all the way from drug forecasting till delivery and distribution.

“The execution of clinical trials has become very expensive, due to the lack of oversight into drug product visibility across multiple partners and IT systems,鈥 said David Volk, executive director of Clinical Supply at Roche. 鈥淭his is an industry-wide challenge that we must all address together. The model of a consortium to solve this issue is not only beneficial to our industry, but to society. Setting standards will help greatly improve clinical trial success rates, to ensure time and money spent will push more clinical trials through to completion.鈥

51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management helps life sciences companies gain end-to-end visibility of clinical supplies, from planning to production to patient.

With the solution, life sciences organizations can:

  • Optimize clinical trial processes and eliminate manual interfaces
  • Gain end-to-end visibility into the clinical supplies process from source to clinical site with unified master 听data
  • Support advanced and dynamic study designs with flexible and configurable clinical study set up
  • Reduce inventory overage/wastageand clinical supply cycle times with more accurate demand forecasting and planning
  • Establish a network of clinical supply chain stakeholders such as interactive response technology providers, contract manufacturing organizations, contract research organizations, logistics providers, etc.
  • Innovate an industry standard to determine best practices, develop the future standard solution from which to learn, and co-innovate with other life sciences stakeholders
  • Enable end-to-end process operations to plan, source, manufacture, distribute, and reconcile supplies for clinical research and development (R&D)
  • Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by leveraging existing 51风流business capabilities through 51风流S/4HANA extensions, such as material management, production process, logistics, sales, global label management, warehouse management, advanced track and trace for pharmaceuticals, global trade services, etc.

Based on the success of the clinical trial solution consortium, 51风流has launched another consortium to address the needs for life sciences organizations cell and gene therapy processes.听 This consortium will support the development of the planned 51风流Cell and Gene Therapy Orchestration solution.

Learn more about 51风流Intelligent Clinical Supply Management:

  • Read the
  • View the infographic:

Gayatri Gopal is director of Product Management for Life Sciences at SAP.

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51风流and Boehringer Ingelheim Create Smart App Prototype to Track Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals /2021/11/boehringer-ingelheim-smart-app-prototype-counterfeit-pharmaceuticals/ Tue, 09 Nov 2021 13:00:26 +0000 /?p=191684 WALLDORF 鈥 The app is designed to track, trace and authenticate prescription medicines in the U.S.]]> WALLDORF 鈥 (NYSE: SAP) is announcing a smart app designed to track, trace and authenticate prescription medicines in the United States. Developed in partnership with leading global pharmaceutical research company , the smart app will enable law enforcement officials to potentially detect illicit, counterfeit or unapproved Boehringer Ingelheim medicines being smuggled into the United States or sold illegally.

The smart app will allow U.S. law enforcement officials across the country to scan the 2D barcode on Boehringer Ingelheim-manufactured life-enhancing medications and authenticate them before the medicines reach patients.

鈥淭he law enforcement smart app utilizes SAP鈥檚 scalable and secure blockchain solution for manufacturers to drastically improve the pharmaceutical supply chain from start to finish,鈥 said SAP鈥檚 global GM for Consumer Industries, Matt Laukaitis. 鈥淎s this app demonstrates, vertical industry expertise is a critical success factor in delivering innovations to protect patients and ensure access to authentic, life-enhancing medicines.鈥

Passed into law in 2013, the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) aimed to boost the FDA鈥檚 ability to protect U.S. patients by developing a connected, digital system to trace prescription drugs throughout the country and identify counterfeit, stolen or contaminated medicine before it reached the hands of consumers.

SAP鈥檚 smart app is a major step in achieving the vision of the DSCSA and is vital to protecting communities and patient safety. When counterfeit drugs are released into the supply chain, vulnerable patients and marginalized populations with limited access to safe, authentic and affordable medicines bear the brunt of the impact.

鈥淧atient safety is our top priority at our family-owned company, and unverified pharmaceuticals, especially amid a global pandemic, pose a significant threat to the safety and security of both patients and healthcare providers,鈥 said Aaron Graham, Executive Director, Brand Safety & Security, Boehringer Ingelheim. 鈥淪AP鈥檚 blockchain-based solution allows our team to safeguard against illicit and unsafe medicines reaching the hands of those who need medicine the most.鈥

This technology builds on SAP鈥檚 previous efforts to eliminate counterfeit products with 51风流Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences, a blockchain-technology tool that allows users to authenticate pharmaceutical packaging as it moves between manufacturers, U.S. wholesalers and U.S. hospitals and pharmacies.

To learn more, watch a .

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Media Contact:
Stacy Ries, +1 (484) 619-0411, stacy.ries@sap.com, ET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥 鈥渂elieve,鈥 鈥渆stimate,鈥 鈥渆xpect,鈥 鈥渇orecast,鈥 鈥渋ntend,鈥 鈥渕ay,鈥 鈥減lan,鈥 鈥減roject,鈥 鈥減redict,鈥 鈥渟hould鈥 and 鈥渨ill鈥 and similar expressions as they relate to 51风流are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51风流undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
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51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

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Not-So-Obvious Lessons Learned Managing a Global Vaccine Distribution Cold-Chain /2021/04/vaccine-supply-chain-lessons-distribution-cold-chain/ Wed, 07 Apr 2021 12:15:00 +0000 /?p=184281 While organizations have never confronted a worldwide supply chain challenge exactly like the COVID-19 vaccine, they have been forced to transform business operations as never before.

Savvy organizations are already applying some of the past year鈥檚 lessons learned to future supply chain excellence.

Select Trusted Partners

Don鈥檛 skimp on vendor capabilities when choosing IT partners for something as complex as the vaccine cold-chain. Accept nothing less than 24/7 support, meaning proactive and reactive help to keep systems running. Resilience has shot to the top of the must-have list for business continuity. This is not so much about bouncing back from set-backs, but rather being agile enough to predict potential problems and swiftly shift gears to stay on track — regardless of the challenges, like matching uncertain vaccine supply with demand.

For example, last year launched a global task force to support customers with preemptive preparation around the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. No stranger to managing complex customer events such as Black Friday, 51风流applications are also part of vaccine manufacturing and distribution supply chains worldwide.

鈥51风流has longtime expertise helping large organizations run mission critical applications in the cloud; it鈥檚 our core competence,鈥 said Vivian Luechau-de la Roche, senior vice president and head of 51风流Mission Control Center. 鈥淲ith the vaccine, companies have to successfully manage numerous integrated business processes with high data volumes in an intelligent manner. That is the cornerstone of our holistic Business Transformation as a Service that helps customers become intelligent enterprises.鈥

Luechau-de la Roche added that moving enterprise systems to the has assumed greater urgency, fueled in part by COVID-19, which has forced companies to evolve business models at breakneck speed.

Demand Integrated Supply Chain Expertise

Confirm a vendor鈥檚 willingness and ability to understand potential supply chain problems arising from infrastructure, hardware, databases, and software applications. Issues can arise anywhere — from the production line of the factory making glass vials that store vaccines to the shop floor of the vaccine manufacturer itself, in warehouse storage facilities, down to logistics companies transporting the vaccine and providers tasked with inoculations.

Can the vendor and its partners anticipate and jump in with alacrity to help solve problems, upstream or downstream, as well as with peripheral supply chain demands like diagnostic testing kits and PPE?听 Do they have a track record working with many organizations so they know how to troubleshoot quickly?听 System data, support, and expert teams need to be fully integrated to resolve issues before they cascade with larger negative impact.

鈥淲e initially identified a wide range of customers likeliest to require greater support during the vaccine roll out. We also knew if there were disruptions at any point in the supply chain, we needed to be ready to help them, whether they are a direct or indirect 51风流customer,鈥 said Holger Graf, head of 51风流Mission Critical Support North America. 鈥淲e brought in hardware, database, and application experts in areas including supply chain, warehouse management, and finance so we could address a particular problem and related impacts.鈥

This preparation paid off over the 2020 holidays, when a hospital flagged performance issues that jeopardized reporting deadlines on daily COVID-19 case numbers. The 51风流task force promptly discovered it was a database problem and resolved it.

Insist on Multi-Layered Support

To minimize downtime, be certain the support team is capable of stepping in fast with an immediate temporary work-around, followed by a root cause solution. In one situation, the 51风流task force quickly brought in supply chain and development team experts to holistically redesign business processes for a pharmaceutical manufacturer building a new vaccine storage warehouse that will use . The team鈥檚 project-based recommendations and implementation support will help the customer meet urgent timelines in compliance with vaccine storage, packaging, and shipping regulations.

Test Early to Prevent Failures Later

Plan and anticipate what could go wrong down to the last mile of delivery. This includes testing system and business process performance for dramatically expanded data volumes. Early last year, 51风流began working with a number of large customers that were directly involved in developing vaccines. As part of that , 51风流helped manufacturers prepare systems for upcoming higher volume workloads long before the vaccine was ready.

Teamwork for Speed is Non-Negotiable

Make sure all of your support partners can work together for fast problem-solving, even with limited in-person contact. Knowledge sharing is essential, among cloud-based hyperscalers and software vendors, consulting firms, and internal IT and business contacts. Teamwork also extends to the many supply chain participants, including the manufacturers of vaccines and related equipment like glass vials and syringes, distributors, logistics, and healthcare organizations.

For example, 51风流Mission Control Center task force ramped up quickly in late 2020 to support customers as soon as vaccines were approved in the U.S. and Europe.

鈥淲e were ready with dedicated resources to help customers stay ahead of anything that could impede their ability to manufacture or ship the vaccine, diagnostic kits, and other components,鈥 said Graf. 鈥淲e worked closely with 51风流account teams to provide designated contact points, including regional escalation managers, and we boosted our expert engineer capacity to quickly manage an expected wave of incoming support requests.鈥

Long after this pandemic has receded, organizations will apply these supply chain lessons to new challenges certain to arise in an uncertain world. Indeed, SAP鈥檚 task force remains at the ready to immediately add support when organizations need it. The quick pivot has become another lasting post-pandemic business imperative.


Follow me: @smgaler
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CureVac Scales COVID-19 Vaccine Production and Distribution /2021/02/curevac-covid-19-vaccine-production-distribution/ Tue, 23 Feb 2021 15:15:41 +0000 /?p=183316 It鈥檚 one thing to create a vaccine formula that the world is crying out for; it鈥檚 quite another to get it into billions of arms. Commensurate with the challenge, CureVac provides a case study in how a rising star in vaccine development is ramping up production to meet virtually infinite demand.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, CureVac immediately applied the its founder, Ingmar Hoerr, had , to develop a vaccine candidate. Currently in the process of completing its late-stage clinical trials, the company expects approval to produce and distribute its vaccine in the second quarter of this year. are already in circulation.

Ramping Up Operations in All Areas

CureVac therefore needs to rapidly transition from research and lab-scale producer to large-scale manufacturer. CEO Dr. Franz-Werner Haas the goal of producing 300 million doses by the end of this year and 600 million in 2022.

Pierre Kemula, chief financial officer of CureVac, described the challenge ahead: 鈥淭o get ready, we have to ramp up our operations in all areas, including manufacturing, procurement and supply chain, quality management, business planning, and analytics 鈥 but also administrative functions like human resources and finance.鈥

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Unpausing the World - The Global Vaccination Challenge

Video by Tilman Goettke and Klaus Boeckle

To scale up rapidly, CureVac is working with partners. In January, the company entered a German multinational pharmaceutical group Bayer to draw on its expertise and infrastructure. Then in February, CureVac announced a , building on their existing relationship to jointly develop next-generation mRNA vaccines to address multiple emerging variants.

By with experienced contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), CureVac will tap into expertise and capacity across Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Austria, as well as potentially Sweden, Poland, Italy, and Ireland. CureVac is also building a at its headquarters in T眉bingen, to go into operation in 2022.

Although mRNA vaccines are not a new concept, the pandemic marks the first time they have been authorized for use outside of clinical trials. The resulting surge in demand has been the source of some hiccups in the supply chain. A shortage of messenger RNA is not expected, but there is , according to Scientific American.

One of the limiting factors in vaccine production currently are lipid nanoparticles (LNP), the material needed to encapsulate and protect the messenger RNA, which are very sensitive and require rare special expertise to produce, explained Dr. Oliver N眉rnberg, chief product owner for 51风流Life Sciences at SAP.

Moving the Needle: CureVac Entrusts 51风流with its Business Transformation

A business transformation of this magnitude with peak demand and supply chain challenges from the outset requires a highly adaptable, integrated, and intelligent enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. To achieve the desired scale quickly, CureVac will focus on developing and producing vaccines, while relying on for its business and operations.

鈥淲e need a partner like 51风流to define and implement the business processes to tackle this incredible growth,鈥 Kemula confirmed. CureVac leaders have teamed up with 51风流to introduce cloud-based solutions for procurement, manufacturing, quality management, and supply chain processes to a global scale.

Since most of CureVac鈥檚 partners, suppliers, and customers already run SAP, CureVac鈥檚 CFO is convinced the collaboration, sharing of digitized data or interoperability of manufacturing and supply chain systems will be much easier. 鈥51风流solutions also support CureVac鈥檚 GxP compliance, which is a key requirement for all biopharmaceutical companies. This a must-have for us,鈥 he said.

Top image via video.

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Pharmaceutical-Focused Model Companies Optimize Healthcare Pursuits for 2020 and Beyond /2020/04/sap-model-company-for-pharmaceuticals-healthcare/ Fri, 24 Apr 2020 12:15:59 +0000 /?p=170500 Pharmaceutical innovation has long been focused on the development and delivery of lifesaving, health-focused products and services.

However, as patients become more proactive and involved in their wellness and providers face new market and regulatory expectations, the industry鈥檚 playbook is evolving 鈥 continuously, at an ever-accelerating pace.

Now, in addition to commercialization and profitability, they are at the front lines of patient safety and experience. From the globalization of drug supply chains to the competing alternatives for treatment or care and rising threats from counterfeit and fraudulent medicine, the role of pharmaceutical companies has never been more important.

So how can pharmaceutical companies work faster and smarter to relentlessly pursue proven solutions, meaningful provider relationships, and personalized patient outcomes? For many 51风流customers in the industry, reliance on the 51风流Model Company service for Pharmaceuticals is illuminating strategic priorities and new opportunities.

What Is 51风流Model Company for Pharmaceuticals?

Using insights and knowledge acquired from long-term experience within the pharmaceutical industry, 51风流has developed a portfolio of reference solutions and content called 51风流Model Company for Pharmaceuticals.

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51风流Model Company for Pharmaceuticals 鈥 Value proposition and scope

 

The service is prepackaged with 51风流S/4HANA, ready to be used across end-to-end processes, and based on the latest industry best practices and master data. It delivers business value within two to four weeks by providing an advanced IT architecture and the highest degree of standardization in order to lower implementation risks and build a future-proof digital foundation.

For most customers, 51风流Model Company for Pharmaceuticals is a critical component in their accelerated conversion to 51风流S/4HANA. Interoperable with a library of model company offerings available through SAP, the service covers a large variety of core processes. It also allows hands-on experiences to experiment and test new use cases. These capabilities have inspired innovation for business areas, including product development, manufacturing, procurement, sales, logistics, and asset management. Industry-specific concerns are also addressed, such as batch traceability, active ingredients subcontracting, quality control, and regulatory compliance.

Additionally, 51风流Model Company for Pharmaceuticals allows customers to innovate their operational processes by leveraging intelligent technologies and analytics capabilities. Doing so can drive considerable changes in product safety and stewardship and tank-level monitoring. As new innovations are added to the model company portfolio, new opportunities for improvement will introduce more efficient practices for functions such as compliance, sales, management of safety data sheets, and advanced track-and-trace capabilities.

Find Your Place in a World Where the rules of Patient Care Always Change

The ability to respond to patient expectations, provider demands, and government requirements will determine the winners in the pharmaceutical industry 鈥 in 2020 and beyond. Successful business model innovation, process optimization, and workforce productivity will always be inextricably linked to great patient, customer, and employee experiences.

Luckily, 51风流Model Company for Pharmaceuticals is designed to help businesses pull away from the competition and widen the performance gap with each new innovation. By creating a landscape of exceptional experiences and patient assurance, customers can kickstart a new era of profitability with new technologies, practices, and methodologies that help deliver lifesaving products and services more efficiently.


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Maurice Carl Zettel is a business process consultant for 51风流Digital Business Services.

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