Big Ideas in Supply Chain

Seagen's integrated supply chain: From clinical trials to commercialization

Episode Summary

Explore the complexities of supply chain planning in the biopharma industry with Elisabeth Kaszas, VP of Global Supply Operations at Seagen, and Allen Jacques, Industry Thought Leader at Kinaxis. In this episode of Big Ideas in Supply Chain, Elisabeth details her 30 years of experience in life sciences and biopharma, including her recent accomplishments transforming the supply chain process at Seagen. Elisabeth and Allen deliver powerful insights when it comes to tackling rapid growth due to product launches, exchanging data, reducing lead times, and the vital role of advanced planning.

Episode Notes

Want to know what it takes to manage an integrated supply chain that delivers a continuous supply of life-saving medicine around the world? In this episode of Big Ideas in Supply Chain, Elisabeth Kaszas, VP of Global Supply Operations at Seagen, joins Allen Jacques, Industry Thought Leader at Kinaxis, to discuss the importance of demand planning processes and tackling rapid growth during product launches. Gain insights on Seagen's transformation journey and learn why seamless data exchanges within the biopharma industry can reduce lead times to improve patient access to innovative therapies. 

• Seagen develops life-saving medicines using ADC (Antibody Drug Conjugate) technology, which targets and destroys select cancer cells. Elisabeth joined their team three years ago while they were in the midst of launching three major products. These launches created exponential growth within the company, creating new opportunities to scale up operations and understand the demand signals needed for production plans, supply plans, and distribution capabilities. [5:18]
• Elisabeth worked vigilantly to prepare Seagen as they faced incremental growth. To do this, she knew they needed to remain agile and create more robust roles, responsibilities, and processes to ensure they would be able to sustain the volume and complexity of their products. Additionally, she had an integrated business planning process put in place to gain better end-to-end visibility. [7:51]
• One of the biggest challenges faced at Seagen is long lead times, a topic that many supply chain practitioners are familiar with. Elisabeth states that making life-saving therapies takes time – and safety stock buffers – to try to stay ahead. She also believes there have been a lot of improvements over the past 20 years thanks to the help of advanced analytics and digital tools that have helped her gain improved insights into their end-to-end times to see where inventory is taking the longest. [18:12]

To hear more from Elisabeth and Allen about the vital role of advanced planning and the complexities of supply chain planning in biopharma, watch our latest Big Ideas in Supply Chain podcast.

Learn more about Elisabeth Kaszas and the work she’s doing at Seagen by following her on LinkedIn.