Bio Supply Management Alliance Addresses Risk Identification in the Supply Chain

May 26, 2009 - PRLog -- The Bio Supply Management Alliance has partnered with leading experts in risk management to tackle complex product and supplier resilience issues in the biotech supply chain.  The leading thought and practice leaders throughout the United States will discuss the techniques and challenges in identifying risks in the biotech global supply chain in a Webinar on June 18, 2009, from 9:00 am to 11:00 am PST.  Panels consisting of industry and academic leaders will address how to develop risk identification programs in the clinical trial and commercial supply chains.

Increasing complexities in the global supply chain have introduced unprecedented risks to the product life cycle and business viability.  Supply interruptions, poor product quality, clinical trial stockouts, financial viability and product liability lawsuits contribute to the challenges in meeting the needs of patients worldwide effectively and efficiently.  “Principles and practices of optimization of a supply chain in the biopharma industry face an unprecedented dimension and challenge with risk inherent in an interdependent world,” says Devendra Mishra, Executive Director,  “Extraordinary leaders from industry and academia will provide the building blocks for the understanding of risk management and execution for integrated and holistic solutions.”   Identifying these risks is an enormous undertaking in an interdependent world and requires informed and trained resources to mitigate their impact and protect the products and packaging from raw material to distributed finished product.  Leading risk management experts in projects, insurance, legal, and governance will address this growing concern for biotech and pharma companies worldwide.

The keynote address will be made by Rita Mulcahy, PMP, of RMCproject, a world leading expert in project risk management who will speak on how risk management can help you.  She is a founding member of the PMI® Risk Management Special Interest Group and a researcher on international risk management.  She recently released her book “Risk Management, Tricks of the Trade® for Project Managers.”   Speaking on identifying risks in the clinical trials supply chain will be Dave Malenfant, SVP of Global Supply Chain and Head of the Risk Management committee at Alcon Laboratories and Andy Ramelmeier, Ph.D., VP of Manufacturing and Process Development at BioMarin Pharmaceutical.  This panel will be moderated by Laura Langone, the Senior Vice-President of Executive Client Relationships at Marsh and former Director of Risk Management at Genentech.   Dave Humphrey, a Senior Manager at Deloitte and Touche, will speak on improving the health of the supply chain through risk identification.  

The industry panel on identifying risk in the commercial global supply chain will consist of Phil Kaminsky, Ph.D., of UC Berkeley’s School of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Dave Malenfant, Chris Sam, Executive Director of Risk Management at Amgen, and Mahender Singh, Ph.D., Research Director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, and author of Building Resilient Global Supply Networks.  

Gary Lynch, CISSP, will be speaking on identifying single points of failure in the global supply chain.  He is the Managing Director and Global Practice Leader of the Supply Chain Risk Management Practice at Marsh and the author of “At Your Own Risk: How the Risk Conscious Culture Meets the Challenge of Business Change” and “Single Point of Failure: 10 Laws of Supply Chain Risk Management” which will be released by Wiley in June 2009.

To register for the webinar, visit www.biosupplyalliance.org.

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About Bio Supply Management Alliance

The Bio Supply Management Alliance was born of the need to create a worldwide community of operations and supply chain management leaders and professionals in the biotech, biopharma, and biomedical device industries. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to more than 600 bio firms, the Alliance provides a forum for collaboration, learning and best practice sharing of practitioners, executives and thought leaders in these uniquely demanding industry sectors.

Founders Tim Salaver and Devendra Mishra have forged relationships with key industry leaders and defined initiatives with a vision to create process, people, and policy improvements in this vital sector.

Because life depends on us, the Bio Supply Management Alliance supports continuous learning and improvement of bio supply management professionals.

For more information about the Bio Supply Management Alliance, go to www.biosupplyalliance.org.