Expired product sustainability

Background

Sustainability is a hot topic in any industry, and its importance continues to grow in response to increasing environmental and social needs. Three facets of sustainability are of primary importance within the healthcare space:

– Environmental Protection

– Access to Healthcare

– Ethics & Transparency

A global pharmaceutical organization was interested in opportunities to improve sustainability within their supply chain reverse logistics and engaged Recombinators to investigate current processes and outline opportunities.

Approach

To find opportunities within the company’s supply chain reverse logistics, we began with a two-prong investigation: what is the industry currently doing, and are there any breakthrough ideas from outside the industry that could be applied? We considered sustainability from all lenses, categorizing opportunities to improve environmental sustainability as well as increasing access and transparency.

Approach

The team identified tactics that could work together to improve sustainability in multiple ways, e.g. streamlining the logistics process and partnering with other supply chain stakeholders (e.g. distributors and pharmacies) to consolidate the supply chain and leverage existing channels to donate unused product before expiry, ultimately increasing Health Equity and access to healthcare while also reducing the environmental impact of returns shipping and the destruction process.

Output

The team created a report to outline industry best practices for reverse logistics and returns policies, and made strategic suggestions on how the team could improve supply chain sustainability while also increasing efficiency and maintaining best practices across the value chain.

Consultant Name

Nicole Nezat

05.31.2023

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