Montreal, April 8th, 2024 – The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted North America and Europe to reconsider the feasibility of slightly rebalancing their supply chains, which currently heavily rely on Asia.
This context has the potential to impact supply chain management, increasing the risk profile. The impacts on Public Health can be tangible and significant, with the most direct and obvious observable consequence being drug shortages. In the case of critical drugs, this could impact quality of life and in some cases even survival.
Events such as the conflict in the Red Sea significantly affecting transportation lead times, the substantial increase in electricity and gas prices in Europe, the threat of climate change leading to water shortages, or the recent earthquake in Taiwan serve as reminders of the necessity of diversifying supply chains through the introduction of geographical criteria. It has become a matter of national security.
Reshoring does not entail relocating 100% of the supply chain from one location to another but rather diversifying it while also considering geographical factors. In recent years, the industry’s prioritization of cost reduction in an attempt to meet increasing economic expectations of health insurance providers and/or social security systems has resulted in counter-productive significant additional costs when any disruptions occur in the supply chain.
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) play a pivotal role in this reshoring strategy. Canada, due to its geographical proximity to the USA, can be considered as a very favorable location. Minakem, with its facility in Montreal, the largest commercial API facility in Canada, expects to contribute to the strategic reallocation of the supply chain.
Minakem recently participated in a mission held in Washington D.C. on April 3rd by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. During this summit, Sébastien Poncet, General Manager of Minakem Generics and New Therapies, emphasized that “solutions already exist in Canada and that the most straightforward and quickest solutions may involve expanding existing facilities to reshore critical APIs for national security reasons.” Let’s work to make this strategy a reality.
