Our team at the DCAT dinner.  Thank you all for your time and presence!  Best table ever!

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“Oh, how sweet it is!”

I loved to watch reruns of The Honeymooners.  The old-style humor always struck a chord with me.  Because of that, Jackie Gleason has always been a fixture that pops to mind when I think of New York City.  It’s not just because there is a statue of Ralph Kramden at Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, but because that character portrayed the spirit of New York. A spirit duplicated no where else in the world.

Last week, the pharmaceutical industry descended on mid-town Manhattan for the Drug, Chemical, & Associated Technologies Meeting.  The event started in 1926 as the premier event for all members of the pharmaceutical industry to come together from around the world.  There are individual company meetings, presentations, education events, and the capstone 94^th Annual DCAT black-tie dinner.  In any given year, this get-together is a high point for all the associated pharmaceutical support companies to come together and gauge the future of the industry.

This year, it was a special event.  For two years DCAT was cancelled due to COVID.  And for those two years, I realized how much I missed the chance to see all of the people in our industry.  There are faces and names I’ve come to know in my 32 years in this industry.  DCAT was always the place to catch up personally and professionally. Two years was a long time away.

It was a little awkward at first.  LaGuardia is completely renovated.  It looks like a shopping mall. We didn’t know whether to bump elbows, shake hands or hug at meetings.  I was more inclined to hug. Staff at the Kimberly Hotel, where we have stayed every year for almost 30 years, got hugs because it was like seeing family.  

To all of you that attended, it was good to see you again, even if just passing on the street or in a hotel lobby.  To new friends and associates, it was good to meet you and I hope to see you again in the future at more DCAT meetings.  And to old friends, thank you for coming to NYC so that I could lay eyes and hugs on you, again.  

I don’t know how much business I accomplished, but it felt good to be back.  Having missed it these last two years, I realize it is an experience that can’t be measured in profit or loss. 

I wish you all the best of luck in the coming year!  We’ll see you next year, “under the clock”.  How sweet it is!

“The Horseshoe Nails” by James Baldwin (1924-1987)

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost;
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost;
For the want of a horse the battle was lost;
For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost;—
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

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Throughout the last 30+ years, many pharma companies worked to outsource their low-value starting materials, many produced in-house in the US, to China and India. The rationale, at the time, was sound. Outsourcing provided opportunities for a lower cost raw material and a lower cost of goods (COGS) for the final product, either API or drug product. 

This strategy also opened valuable manufacturing assets in the US for higher value intermediates and new development products.  It also allowed the US to develop new cGMP partners in new markets expanding its manufacturing base.

That outsourcing strategy was successful for more than 30 years. The generic industry thrived, and branded products expanded opportunities for low-cost raw material feed. Ultimately, a critical lesson was forgotten. It was a rule of thumb on our teams, for both commercial and development products, to dual source as much as possible and as early as possible.

We strove to provide sound alternatives for all sourced materials so that our customers (both internal in the corporate world or external when dealing with contract clients) had a broad supply base as the products developed.

BUILDING A COMPLETE SUPPLIER PORTFOLIO FOR CLIENTS

We took the strategic position that as the product developed, the cream of the supplier crop would rise to the top of the chain, and we would have multiple options for manufacturing our end-product. Early on, this took time and expense. Multiple suppliers had to be evaluated on capabilities, price, quality and regulatory positions at a minimum. Many hours were invested as suppliers tried to meet our demands and our team tried to build a complete supplier portfolio for our clients. In the end, our goal to present at least two, high quality, cost compliant, dependable suppliers to our customer was met. In our eyes, this represented a robust, dependable supply chain as the target product moved through the process to being a commercial pharmaceutical product.

Inevitably, though, cost became an issue. For some products, there simply wasn’t a sufficient purchase volume to keep them interested in supplying. In other cases, negotiating commercial supply agreements or purchase orders often pitted one supplier against another. After too many periods of losing a bid, some suppliers dropped out, and the cost to our client of maintaining multiple suppliers in their systems became a burden. Eventually, there were goals to reduce the supplier base. Through a combination of these evolutionary lines, the supply chains slimmed down to one supplier per item: efficient and low-cost to manage, but not strategically sound.

FIGHT FOR DUAL SOURCING

COVID-19 has taught us that skinny supply chains are dangerous. Whether it’s a pandemic or natural disaster, it’s easy to fracture a skinny chain. We’re seeing pushes in the industry to analyze the development of US-domestic raw material manufacturers. That’s a significant challenge given that off-shoring those basic technologies severely depleted the ability to manufacture some types of compounds. The capacity simply isn’t there, and a large investment of money and time will be needed to bring it back.

We think it’s critical that product development managers sincerely fight for dual sourcing in their supply chains, not simply for critical items, but ALL items where possible. Utilizing partners in the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, as well as China and India, still allows for developing broad, stable supply chains for critical need products.

Dual sourcing simply needs to be a primary factor going forward. Supply chain specialists, product managers, marketing managers, and senior management need to remember the risks we’re seeing play out now and build the dual-sourcing cost into their products in order to assure adequate supply.

If you’ve ever visited the GreenField offices, you’ve had the opportunity to meet our dogs.  They’ve been a fixture since 2006 when I first started bringing my golden retriever, Tigger, to work.  This all started when the GreenField team was in San Francisco for a biotech customer call.  We were visiting all the boutique companies we could find in various places throughout the Bay area. We came across one company that had a golden retriever greeter in the reception room.  It was the CEO’s dog, and it came up, in typical golden retriever fashion, and greeted us as we signed in.  From that moment, we vowed that our dogs were coming to work with us.

Tigger was the first, and even though he crossed the Rainbow Bridge a few years ago, others have followed.  Dogs are a constant fixture at GreenField and an integral part of our workday. We’ve even encouraged clients to bring their dogs whenever they visit. Some might think it’s strange, but the benefits are tremendous!

Stress Reliever Retrievers

Workdays can be hectic, especially during a pandemic.  Having dogs at the office takes all that away. They are extremely therapeutic.

When you need a break, there’s always a 4-legged buddy to play a game of fetch.  Nothing clears the cobwebs like tossing the tennis ball to a willing retriever.  They’re always happy, content and not burdened by a day full of meetings and deadlines.

Studies have shown that simply petting a dog lowers stress hormone levels (cortisol) and increase “feel good” hormones (oxytocin). Nothing gets me over the “blahs” better than looking under my desk to see a content dog snoring away.

The GreenField pups get us up and moving around. We go for walks in the neighborhood to clear our minds and get the blood flowing- and if you’re a step tracker- it adds to the daily tally.

The Happy 6-Pack

Our dogs, ALL 6, are as much of a fixture for GreenField as Frank, Rosina, Nathan and myself.

As pack animals, being with their group makes them whole and being with us makes them just as happy. The dogs are better behaved when we get home.  We have our routine.  They know it and it gives them stability and structure. It also gets them used to meeting new people and being comfortable around them.  They’re less jumpy when they’re in new situations.  All of that is good for them.

If you’re ever in the neighborhood, stop by. I guarantee, you’ll leave with a wagging tale!