Designing Supply Chain Network Resilience : Medicine Shortages in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Sammanfattning: Background: In a globalised world and increased interconnected business environments effective resilience capabilities are pivotal for disruption mitigation. In the pharmaceutical industry this concerns the phenomenon of medicine shortages and high geographical sourcing dependencies resulting in severe consequences for healthcare providers and patients. Purpose: Analysing challenges affecting resilience in the upstream of the pharmaceutical supply chain network and root-causes of the heparin sourcing shortage. This study aims to find resilience strategies to effectively manage future heparin sourcing shortages. Method: This qualitative case study analysed the dynamic phenomenon of supply chain network resilience in a German listed healthcare company. Semi- structured interviews were conducted based on non-probability purposive sampling. The empirical findings were analysed according to the thematic analysis. Conclusion: The findings indicate that insufficient management of challenges impacting the supply chain network resilience leads to medicine shortages. Driven by the ethical obligation the pharmaceutical supply chain network particularly has to deal with external hurdles and sourcing dependencies created by complex product characteristics.