Opinion: To Alleviate Supply Chain Shortages, Companies Should Share Data

Pictured: Illustration of interconnected network/iStock, IR_Stone

Traditionally, the pharma industry kept data close to its chest, but the pandemic sparked a global attitude shift that led to widespread information sharing. The industry turned on a dime, halting practices that had previously kept advancements in drug discovery and development under wraps and embracing a spirit of collaboration and information sharing that expedited progress. Examples of this include the partnership between Pfizer and BioNTech to develop mRNA vaccines and Sanofi working on vaccine research with GlaxoSmithKline and vaccine supply with Johnson & Johnson.

This shift towards collaboration dramatically reduced supply chain shortages and expedited drug delivery to the patients most in need. We can see the pharma industry served patients best when data was shared freely, but now, in the post-pandemic era, this spirit of undeterred data access is dwindling.

As the senior director of Digital Enablement at CAI, I act as a digital transformation consultant to pharmaceutical companies on the operational readiness and excellence front. Here, I’ll share my perspective on pharma data privacy and how it can stand in the way of resolving critical supply chain issues.

Pharmaceutical companies have good reason to keep their data private; regulatory requirements often prohibit data sharing of sensitive patient data. Even within the same company, sharing data between U.S. and European teams can be unacceptable.

In addition, companies are driven by the race to get novel products to market faster than competitors. Companies pour millions—sometimes even billions—of dollars into each project, making some unwilling to share their data.

And no wonder. There are many examples of unintentional data sharing with disastrous consequences, such as the 2017 cyberattack that targeted numerous pharma companies. However, collaboratively and proactively sharing data with intention can have dramatically beneficial implications for companies and patients alike.

During the pandemic, pharmaceutical companies and CROs collaborated to overcome significant supply chain roadblocks and development and manufacturing challenges. Ultimately, this enabled companies to deliver vaccines and other treatments across the globe in record time.

Data sharing has benefits beyond the pandemic, too. Several years ago, when an ice storm in Texas disrupted the production of plastics manufacturing, many pharma companies could not source the plastics they needed, delaying projects by months. The effects of this disruption could have been counteracted by data sharing to streamline plastic transportation logistics. This could have allowed teams to optimize plastic distribution and perhaps preemptively alleviate manufacturing bottlenecks being faced at that time.

The benefits of data sharing could also continue in this new post-pandemic era. Currently, a patchwork of supply chains underlies the production and transportation of pharmaceuticals that patients need, and shortages are common. If this patchwork approach was replaced by central data sharing, this trove of data could be a powerful tool for training artificial intelligence (AI) models. Using these models, drug shortages could be predicted, and companies could act proactively to avoid them, ensuring that all patients continually have the life-saving therapies they need.

The technology to empower secure data sharing already exists. Combining blockchain technology with tokenization is one solution that would allow data sharing while protecting intellectual property.

Blockchain technology creates an immutable record of all transactional information about a piece of data, creating a chronological history of all companies interacting with that data. Tokenization technology adds a hefty layer of security: It encrypts information to prevent anyone from reading it without a key. Once data are locked into a token, a human recipient can’t read them, allowing companies to share data while protecting them from outside players and from the recipient during transmission. Algorithms and AI can process tokenized data to inform supply chain management.

Data warehouses offer space for pharma companies to store all of their information. Select companies providing this service are going further, attempting to overcome common issues that prevent data sharing. Widespread participation in data sharing will take time, and companies must modernize their data architecture before they can integrate encrypted communication moderated by AI algorithms.

To ensure accurate decision-making in collaboration with AI algorithms, humans must still play a fundamental role in data generation and interpretation. Technology can substantially augment the level of data processing a human is capable of, but AI can make mistakes, so human oversight is still required. Pharma companies can partner with CROs to help transition their data from legacy systems to those that enable more streamlined workflows, combining the power of AI with the intuition of skilled human workers.

The pharmaceutical industry holds its data sacred. While this is understandable, companies must find a way to securely share data to ensure robust supply chain management so that patients can reliably receive the drugs they require. One way to achieve this is by using blockchain technology and tokenization to share information through data warehouses. By pushing the boundaries that limit data sharing, the industry will continue to improve. With more collaboration, companies can enhance supply chain robustness, reduce manufacturing mistakes and mitigate drug shortages.

Nick Armstrong is the senior director of digital enablement at CAI, which helps pharmaceutical companies design, deliver, operate and maintain mission-critical facility engineering.