EPR Podcast Episode 1 – Richard Daniell, Teva Pharmaceuticals

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In European Pharmaceutical Review’s first podcast, Deputy Editor Victoria Rees discusses the current and future states of pharmaceutical supply chains with Richard Daniell, Executive Vice President of European Commercial at Teva Pharmaceuticals.  

“Today, India and China dominate where active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) come from,” says Daniell, explaining how the pharmaceutical market in Europe is supported by a global supply chain. However, he emphasises that a key aspect is balance – ensuring that a global supply chain is in place without being too reliant on one particular area is the ideal scenario.

Daniell also discusses the COVID-19 pandemic and how this has impacted supply chains; for example, when certain factories were shut down, the flow of medicines such as paracetamol was disrupted worldwide. He says that a new challenge arose as a result of the pandemic, creating medicine nationalism with restrictions. Daniell explains why countries need to instead work together to ensure that medicines are delivered to the patients that need them.

We also explore how disruptions to pharmaceutical supply chains can impact patients and thus why it is important to mitigate these as much as possible. As a result, we discuss how policy makers can work to diminish any issues in the medicine supply chain – for example, through collaboration and digitalisation. Daniell highlights that pharmaceutical companies are also responsible for the undisrupted flow of medicines, alongside governments: “we’ve absolutely got our part to play to play in tackling and preventing shortages or any interruption in supply chains.”

Listen to all this and more in our first podcast.

Look out for European Pharmaceutical Review’s next podcast, coming soon!