Supply Chain Delays in the Biopharma industry

Global supply chains have been severely impacted by the pandemic and by attempts to maintain essential supply structures such as food, medicine, and energy supplies.

Needless to say, every country faces their own obstacles and different issues, such as the delivery of raw materials, production or distribution.

In the eye of the storm

The current situation has taken its toll on several companies globally, facing new and different complications such as scarce raw materials or lack of clean rooms and workforce. We at Single Use Support constantly expand clean room capacities and work force, in order to reach our goal of helping optimize biopharma’s production processes. Additionally, we see it as our obligation to make production processes safer and controlled.

On this count, our primary objectives are agility and speed.

Risk, challenges and our reaction

Due to the challenges the latest events have brought with them, companies see themselves confronted with problems and obstacles they have never dealt with before. In fact, a lot of potential has been compromised by delays in supply, missing clean room capacities, and human resources.

The graphic from Financial Times shows, biopharma is not resistant enough on 5 points. Specifically, to avoid supply chain collapse, there needs to be a significant strengthening of supply chain resilience.

Global Biopharma Resilience Index. Source: Financial Times, ft.com

Single Use Support’s advantages in this regard are our own innovations and the experience we gained through dealing with weak points in biopharma for years.

Interview from Biopharm International with Barbara Fischer, Ph.D.r.

Our response to the current bottlenecks

We reacted when nobody else did. The increased need for short lead times caught our eye, and we haven’t looked away since. 

Single Use Support strives to be better and – most importantly – faster. We don’t just accept a problem. We see it, we analyze it, and we find a solution. That is exactly what we did in our most recent success story:

Missing single-use components can cause an entire production of biopharmaceuticals to stop temporarily. Due to the high demand of single-use components for Covid-19 vaccination production, manufacturers of non-Covid-19-vaccines, drew the shortest stick.

When we heard about an existing client that wasn’t able to produce their non-Covid19-vaccine, because of bottlenecks, we stepped in. 

Single Use Support speeded up production and managed to define, sketch, assemble, send to sterilization, resend for quality control and deliver in within only 14 days. 

Single Use Support is a lean company with a high degree of agility and solution-orientation to effectively solve industry-wide problems.

For months, we multiplied our production area and significantly expanded our clean room capacities massively. We have built up a large stock of single-use assemblies and are supplying more and more manufacturers globally on the market, thereby solving their bottlenecks.

Massive stock allows us to be more independent in regard of availabilities and lead times. It also enables us to produce and send single-use assemblies and sterile consumables fast and last-minute. In order to plan for the long run, it is important to maintain the collaboration between manufacturer and supplier. 

Ensuring business continuity for our customers is one of our major objectives. We help to prevent production downtime due to shortage of single-use systems.

Agility and the courage to take risks win

The challenging times brought about by Covid-19 will require a move towards agility and change, especially in the biopharma industry. Old-established structures will need to be reconsidered or even restablished and renewed. Manufacturer’s courage is key to success.

Single Use Support helps you along the way. Pioneering Biopharma through innovative products and reliable, fast supply chains.