COVID-19: big pharma confident on supply chain integrity

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread across countries, concern about the potential for disruption to the manufacture and distribution of pharmaceutical products has intensified.

These anxieties have been exacerbated by the fact that COVID-19 struck first, and worst, in China - impacting key manufacturing operations for the life sciences industry.

There followed reports from the US Food and Drug Administration that an unnamed manufacturer had notified it of a human drug shortage, although at this point no shortage has been identified for products which cannot be replaced by others.