Key Logistics Trends in Life Sciences 2020+
Over the past decade the global life sciences sector has experienced healthy growth
The world market for pharmaceuticals, for example, has doubled within a decade. It has reached a value of about USD 1 trillion and is expected to grow by another 3 to 6 per cent per annum until 2016 (IMS 2012a). Strong growth rates until 2020 are also forecast for the market for medical devices.
Logistics has long been considered a basic supporting function within the life sciences sector. However, the importance of logistics is growing for a number of reasons: (1) the increasing relevance of emerging markets and globalization of supply chains, in turn (2) driving increasing regulatory efforts in particular around temperature management and, finally, (3) a changing product portfolio that, on the one hand, allows new direct-to-market approaches notably for specialties and, on the other hand, requires differentiated ‘value-focused’ approaches for value products and generics, where the cost of logistics drives a larger share of total cost.
This white paper is intended to contribute to the endeavor of managing the resulting challenges. Its aim is to systematically identify the most important required actions for life sciences logisticians for the coming years.