Demystified! Problems and Countermeasures in Pharmaceutical

Pharmaceutical logistics refers to relying on certain logistics equipment, technology, and logistics management information systems to effectively integrate upstream and downstream resources in marketing channels, and to optimize order processing capabilities by optimizing the acceptance, storage, sorting, and distribution operations in the drug supply and distribution process. , Reduce goods sorting errors, shorten inventory and distribution time, reduce logistics costs, improve service levels and capital use efficiency, and realize automation, informationization and efficiency. In order to deepen everyone's understanding of pharmaceutical logistics, let's take a look at the problems and countermeasures of pharmaceutical logistics together in this article. I. Problems facing China's pharmaceutical logistics 1. Technical issues In China, the application of information technology is still in its infancy, which has greatly affected the improvement of China's pharmaceutical logistics modernization level, and the informatization and standardization work has lagged behind. In developed countries, Internet-based information technology and network technology are quite developed.Suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers can share information through the network, enabling data to be transferred quickly and accurately, greatly improving inventory management, loading and unloading transportation, purchasing, Level of automation for ordering, distribution, order processing, etc. However, most pharmaceutical logistics companies do not use logistics information systems, and the information is not linked and shared with each other, which is far from the level of information required by logistics operations. Although many drug suppliers, middlemen, retailers, hospital pharmacies, etc. are equipped with electronic computers, most of them do not play a role because they have not formed a network with each other. In addition, China's current material codes have not yet been standardized, and each field has its own logistics code. As a result, information cannot be transmitted between different fields and electronic computers cannot be networked, which hinders the effective implementation of system logistics management. exception. For example, when drugs enter different chain stores, their own codes are printed accordingly. Type B over-the-counter drugs entering supermarkets are included in the supermarket's coding system. The incompatibility between different chain enterprises, and between chain enterprises and supermarkets, will inevitably cause inefficient information processing and circulation. 2. Institutional issues During the transition of China's pharmaceutical market from a planned economy to a market economy, the country lacked the guidance of macro-regulation policies and restrictions on market access conditions, coupled with the separation of the pharmaceutical power from the pharmaceutical power, and local protection policies, and other reasons prompted a large number of wholesale medicine The emergence and survival of enterprises have led to many problems in China's pharmaceutical wholesale industry. There are many enterprises, small scale, low operating efficiency, disorderly circulation order, backward management methods, insufficient funds, insufficient government policy control, etc. Existence has caused China's pharmaceutical logistics market structure to appear in an excessively decentralized competitive state. This decentralized competitive market structure has brought many adverse effects on the operating efficiency of China's pharmaceutical economy. The first is that the pharmaceutical distribution companies are small in scale, large in number, and high in operating costs.At the same time, due to the large number of pharmaceutical distribution commercial enterprises, the market share and market concentration of the enterprises are low, resulting in high operating costs for the pharmaceutical distribution commercial enterprises. The low overall economic efficiency has become a bottleneck in the development of pharmaceutical logistics. The second is the administrative division of the pharmaceutical market, with serious local protection. Under the state of market division, large, complete, small and complete wholesale enterprises are often formed, and their logistics organization forms are scattered, inefficient, and expensive. This will inevitably have an adverse impact on the large-scale pharmaceutical enterprise groups that implement cross-regional, cross-industry, cross-sector and cross-ownership in pharmaceutical retail chain enterprises. Pharmaceutical logistics is a big market. All pharmaceutical logistics are freely traded in the market. This is a kind of continuous horizontal connection. However, the policy management system of division of departments has cut off this kind of connection vertically. It is difficult for cross-sectoral things to form integration and overall effects, resulting in the current situation of multiple, scattered, chaotic and other situations. Furthermore, for a long time, pharmaceutical distribution companies have formed a traditional management model. Enterprises are accustomed to doing it by themselves, without distinguishing between core and non-core competitiveness. Professional third-party logistics in the pharmaceutical industry is still in its infancy. 3. Low level of corporate profits Due to the inadequate credit system, pharmaceutical commercial enterprises have lagging in reforms due to the singular property rights structure, backward management methods, and insufficient funds, which have led to high operating costs and triangular debt. According to statistics, China's pharmaceutical wholesale enterprises have a net profit rate of only 5.9%. Pharmaceutical business enterprises in 15 provinces have suffered losses for three consecutive years, and the cost of national pharmaceutical logistics has become a top priority for the development of China's pharmaceutical industry. In addition, due to the imperfect credit system of China's pharmaceutical industry, the problem of fund withdrawal is very serious, and the turnover rate of funds is low. Many pharmaceutical wholesale and retail companies are not satisfied with the status of repayment. 4. Shortage of logistics human resources With the enthusiasm of pharmaceutical companies developing their own logistics systems, pharmaceutical logistics talents have become the most sought-after talents. At the same time, as medical precision equipment, liquid injections, blood products, cryopreserved preparations and other logistics requirements are very professional and demanding, composite talents who have relevant knowledge in medicine and are proficient in logistics and related management experience will become talents. New highlights of competition. However, since the requirements of pharmaceutical logistics for related talents are to have experience spanning the two fields of pharmaceutical industry and logistics industry, logistics talents in the true sense are extremely scarce. As far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned, some industry experts estimate that there are only more than a hundred people who can truly qualify as logistics talents. At present, there are about 2,000 medical logistics talents in urgent need throughout the country, which means that the current proportion of medical logistics talents in the society is less than 1/20 of the total demand, and this gap will continue to widen as medical logistics continues to rise. Therefore, the development of logistics talents, especially pharmaceutical logistics talents, is imminent. 5. Management issues Although China's pharmaceutical logistics infrastructure and equipment has begun to take shape, it has extensive operation, poor internal quality, and low operating efficiency. Lack of pharmaceutical logistics management, lack of pharmaceutical logistics system, lack of pharmaceutical logistics service concepts. It can be said that the current management cannot adapt to the development of China's pharmaceutical logistics. 2. The countermeasures for the development of pharmaceutical logistics in China 1. Vigorously develop third-party logistics Third-party logistics is like 'professionals do professional things'. Integrating social resources can effectively increase industry concentration. At the same time, through professional medical logistics services, the entire logistics operation system can be automated and informationized, which can make distribution more efficient. Timely and focused. The integration of a large number of logistics resources, reducing low-level repeated investment, the profit margin has increased significantly, and the efficiency has also improved significantly. After the implementation of the new version of the GSP, due to the pressure of operating funds and the high requirements of operating standards, most pharmaceutical distribution companies will entrust their business to third-party pharmaceutical logistics companies with more cost advantages and better logistics network efficiency, making medical Pharmaceutical third-party logistics has broader development space. Through advanced logistics equipment and technology, and a comprehensive supply chain management system, third-party logistics enterprises can provide more optimized logistics links for upstream and downstream enterprises. By optimizing the acceptance, storage, sorting, and distribution operations, the order process can be improved. Processing capacity and reduce logistics costs. 2, the entire cold chain management The state attaches great importance to the safety of medicines, especially refrigerated medicines, especially the cold chain quality cases of medicines that have appeared in recent years have seriously endangered human lives. The characteristics of pharmaceutical cold chain logistics are to ensure the safety of the drug transportation process, the comprehensiveness of each link, and the dynamics of the transportation process. Logistics cold chain transportation lacks perfect industry standards at the current stage. There are no national standards for cold storage, on-board refrigerators, and refrigerated trucks, resulting in low-efficiency and high-cost operation of pharmaceutical cold chain logistics. Refrigerated medicines can cause serious quality problems when they are received, inspected, stored, maintained and transported. The current GSP raises the industry standard for cold chain transportation of pharmaceutical logistics, integrates social resources, realizes resource sharing, while reducing logistics costs, improving operating efficiency, and changing the phenomenon of chain-breaking of refrigerated pharmaceuticals in all links of circulation. Higher requirements are imposed on the software and hardware of pharmaceutical trading companies, requiring companies to establish cold storage that is compatible with the scale and variety of the business, and equipped with a 24-hour automatic monitoring system for the overall ambient temperature of the cold storage. System. At the same time, the requirements for temperature control during the drug transportation process were increased, and the 'RFID' cold temperature management system was popularized as soon as possible to ensure temperature monitoring throughout the drug circulation process. 3. Comprehensive information management The new version of the GSP clearly proposes that “the management method will be comprehensively promoted, two key links will be strengthened, and three difficult problems will be broken through.” One of the management methods is the full implementation of computer management information systems, focusing on the provision of computer facilities, network environments and applications Software functional requirements. The new GSP emphasizes the need for advanced and comprehensive information management in pharmaceutical logistics The company clearly stated that 'enterprises should establish a computer system that can meet the requirements of management and quality control throughout the operation process, so as to achieve traceability of drug quality and meet the implementation conditions of electronic supervision. Computer management systems belong to GSP software management, such as WMs ( Warehouse management system), OA (office management system), the full implementation of computer management can ensure that personnel in all links in the distribution process strictly standardize operations, control and prevent quality risks, can monitor the cold chain temperature in real time, ensure the quality of cold chain drugs, and achieve drug quality The entire process is effectively traced back and the business operations are strictly controlled.