The Covid-19 pandemic thrust the pharmaceutical supply chain into the spotlight beginning in 2020, with grounded flights and port closures wreaking havoc and causing numerous drug shortages.

Nowadays, these Covid-related disruptions are (mostly) a thing of the past, but we’re still seeing shortages of commonly used drugs like Adderall. The number of US drug shortages rose almost 30% between 2021 and 2022, according to a report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

With drug shortages making headlines so often, Healthcare Brew put together a farm-to-table (or pharm-to-table…ha, get it?) explanation of the pharmaceutical supply chain and what makes it so complicated.

Step by step. On its face, the pharmaceutical supply chain doesn’t seem super complex: A manufacturer makes the drugs, then (usually, but not always) sends them to a wholesaler, which then sends the drugs to a pharmacy for dispensing. But within those steps are many, many smaller steps to make sure the drugs meet quality and safety standards that regulatory agencies set (in the US, that’s the FDA).

A lot of different companies have a hand in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Some of the main players include:

• Drug manufacturers
• Airlines
• Ocean freighters
• Third-party logistics companies
• Trucking companies
• Wholesalers
• Pharmacies

Drug manufacturers don’t wait until their drug receives FDA approval to begin the supply chain process. In fact, the FDA’s approval process actually requires drugmakers to submit their supply chain plans before a drug can receive approval, Hui Zhao, a professor of supply chain management at Penn State with expertise in pharmaceutical supply chains, told Healthcare Brew.

Drug manufacturers typically start by conducting an audit of every step of the supply chain, according to Amy Shortman, VP of product marketing at supply chain technology company Overhaul.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

In honor of National Nurses Week, we have an assignment for you. If you know a nursing professional, send ’em some love and recognize the hard work and care they put in for their patients and healthcare systems every single shift.

GE HealthCare is recognizing these superstars in scrubs in their own way—by painting portraits of 5 nurses, one of which will be displayed in Times Square on International Nurses Day. Ready for the really cool part? Every brush stroke represents an hour of the care they’ve given throughout their career.

For reference, a 30-plus-year career = a mighty 80,000 strokes.

Millions of nurses support a better patient experience, but they’re also facing the greatest headwinds in their industry. GE HealthCare is building tremendous momentum toward creating a world where healthcare has no limits for these priceless caregivers.

See how far they’ve gotten with their mission.

Future physicians are reconsidering where they want to train—and eventually practice—in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of abortion protections granted under Roe v. Wade.

Applications for medical residency programs declined in the 2022-23 cycle, compared to previous years—particularly for emergency medicine and obstetrics and gynecology (ob-gyn) specialties, according to new data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

A recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, meanwhile, found that eight in 10 current or future physicians surveyed after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling said they’d prefer to work or train in states without abortion bans or restrictions. More than 75% said they would not even apply to residency programs in abortion-restricted states.

Those findings could spell trouble for the future of ob-gyn care—and exacerbate health disparities—in abortion-restricted states, since about half of residency graduates typically go on to practice in states where they were trained.

“If we have a constrained pipeline, we’re going to have fewer and fewer trained obstetricians here in a state where we already are at a critical need for more rural obstetricians [and] gynecologists,” Jenny Higgins, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin (UW) Madison, told Healthcare Brew.

By the numbers. About 2% fewer medical school graduates (known as US MD seniors) applied to residency programs in the 2022–23 application cycle than in 2021–22, according to the AAMC analysis released in April. Even fewer (-3%) applied for programs in states with abortion bans.

Medical school graduates were also less likely to seek out residencies in specialties where patients are most likely to be affected by the abortion restrictions, the report found. That includes emergency medicine and obstetrics/gynecology, which saw declines of 21% and 5%, respectively.

Keep reading here.—SY

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Shannon at [email protected]. For completely confidential conversations, ask Shannon for her number on Signal.

Vandana Slatter represents Washington State’s 48th legislative district and introduced what could be one of the most consequential privacy bills in the country: the My Health, My Data Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in April. Prior to working in politics, she worked as a clinical scientist at companies including Amgen and UCB and as a hospital pharmacist.

Marketing Brew spoke with Rep. Slatter about the bill.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Washington State has tried to pass a broader privacy law for the past few years and has failed. Why did this pass?

I can’t speak to everybody’s vote on this issue…But for three years, we’ve worked on privacy policy, and broad, comprehensive privacy legislation has not passed. It was not clear that this bill would actually make it across the finish line. Actually, originally, I was not sure if a privacy bill should be in the works after last year’s privacy bill did not make it through the process.

With the recent Dobbs decision, with the restriction of access to reproductive healthcare in other states, with the privacy landscape changing with that decision, it became evident that women’s health data needed to be protected. People’s health data who were accessing reproductive care, gender-affirming care—and were seeking it in Washington State—needed to be protected. Otherwise, they would be targeted by people. There was a gap in that protection on websites, apps, and searches. I think that that helped to address the urgency of this issue.

Keep reading at Marketing Brew.—RB

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Covid-19 was the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States in 2022. (the Washington Post)

Quote: “The first thing I literally did was text it to my best friend, and I was, like, this is kind of anti-Black. I just feel like it creates a bunch of confusion, and it alienates patients who obviously need these procedures done.”—Sadé Lewis, a New Yorker who needed an EEG and an MRI, on restrictive medical imaging instructions regarding hairstyles (CNN)

Read: Amazon Clinic requires its patients to waive their HIPAA rights. (IAPP)

Catch up on the top Healthcare Brew stories you may have missed:

• AstraZeneca has big R&D goals to mitigate future declines in Covid-related sales
• Say goodbye to trypanophobia—this biotech is trying to turn injectable drugs into pills
• Jefferson Health uses AI to help diagnose patients