Supply Chain Geeky: Managing through the challenges of COVID-19 with an eye to what’s at stake

Complex manufacturing processes and supply chains have always been part of the biopharma industry story, with many people in more than a few nations typically involved along the way. While that observation applies to plenty of other areas of business, Paul Testa, executive vice president for operations and supply chain at Tokyo-based Kyowa Kirin, tells us about the crucial difference with medicine: “We can wait for toilet paper or building materials, but the patient cannot wait because their health care is at stake,” he said. Continuity, reliability of supply, business process and automation were all key priorities for him before the pandemic and haven’t drastically changed since. But “there’s an added layer of complexity with COVID and a lot of the intricacies of managing those details that we all deal with,” he said. How does the Japanese concept of 和 (wa) fit in? Listen to find out.