Decision-support challenges in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry: Findings and future research directions

Trends analysis and future study of the pharmaceutical industry field: a scoping review

OBJECTIVE

The main aim of this study was to explore and understand the emerging developments, changes, and patterns shaping the future of the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry is evolving rapidly due to scientific breakthroughs, societal changes, and technological advancements. Companies can adapt, and innovate to stay competitive and advance healthcare objectives by understanding the changes and patterns shaping the future.

METHODS

We conducted a thorough Scoping Review across PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus, focusing on future trends in the pharmaceutical industry. Studies were carefully selected based on predefined criteria, ensuring a comprehensive and relevant collection.

RESULTS

We identified and selected 24 studies that met our predefined criteria from a pool of 3617 studies. These studies served as the foundation for a detailed exploration of trends within the pharmaceutical industry. This compilation offers a profound understanding of the diverse forces propelling change, including technological advancements, regulatory shifts, evolving market dynamics, and regional nuances.

CONCLUSIONS

This research highlights transformative trends such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, blockchain technology, and digital integration revolutionizing drug discovery, development, manufacturing, and delivery. However, successful implementation hinges on addressing challenges through practical strategies, interdisciplinary collaborations, and region-specific considerations. Future research should explore implementation approaches, facilitating the effective translation of these innovations into tangible healthcare benefits. This forward-looking analysis empowers the pharmaceutical industry to strategically position itself for long-term success in addressing evolving global needs.

Impact of food safety supervision efficiency on preventing and controlling mass public crisis

Food safety has received unprecedented attention since the COVID-19 outbreak. Exploring food safety regulatory mechanisms in the context of cluster public crises is critical for COVID-19 prevention and control. As a result, using data from a food safety regulation survey in the Bei-jing-Tianjin-Hebei urban cluster, this paper investigates the impact of food safety regulation on the prevention and control of COVID-19. The study found that food safety regulation and cluster public crisis prevention and control have a significant positive relationship, with the ability to integrate regulatory resources acting as a mediator between the two. Second, industry groups argue that the relationship between regulatory efficiency and regulatory resource integration should be moderated in a positive manner. Finally, industry association support positively moderates the mediating role of regulatory re-source integration capacity between food safety regulatory efficiency and cluster public crises, and there is a mediating effect of being moderated. Our findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying the roles of regulatory efficiency, resource integration capacity, and industry association support in food safety, and they serve as a useful benchmark for further improving food safety regulations during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Equilibrium Solubility of Triclocarban in (Cyclohexane + 1,4-Dioxane) Mixtures: Determination, Correlation, Thermodynamics and Preferential Solvation

Equilibrium solubility of triclocarban (TCC) expressed in mole fraction in 1,4-dioxane and cyclohexane, as well, as in 19 {cyclohexane (1) + 1,4-dioxane (2)} mixtures, was determined at seven temperatures from T = (288.15 to 318.15) K. Logarithmic TCC solubility in these cosolvent mixtures was adequately correlated with a lineal bivariate equation as function of both the mixtures composition and temperature. Apparent thermodynamic quantities for the dissolution and mixing processes were computed by means of the van’t Hoff and Gibbs equations observing endothermal and entropy-driven dissolution processes in all cases. The enthalpy–entropy compensation plot of apparent enthalpy vs. apparent Gibbs energy was linear exhibiting positive slope implying enthalpy-driving for TCC transfer from cyclohexane to 1,4-dioxane. Ultimately, by using the inverse Kirkwood–Buff integrals it is observed that TCC is preferentially solvated by cyclohexane molecules in 1,4-dioxane-rich mixtures but preferentially solvated by 1,4-dioxane molecules in cyclohexane-rich mixtures.

Food Quality, Drug Safety, and Increasing Public Health Measures in Supply Chain Management

Over the last decade, there has been an increased interest in public health measures concerning food quality and drug safety in supply chains and logistics operations. Against this backdrop, this study systematically reviewed the extant literature to identify gaps in studying food quality and drug safety, the proposed solutions to these issues, and potential future research directions. This study utilized content analysis. The objectives of the review were to (1) identify the factors affecting food quality and possible solutions to improve results, (2) analyze the factors that affect drug safety and identify ways to mitigate them through proper management; and (3) establish integrated supply chains for food and drugs by implementing modern technologies, followed by one another to ensure a multi-layered cross-verification cascade and resource management at the different phases to ensure quality, safety, and sustainability for the benefit of public health. This review investigated and identified the most recent trends and technologies used for successfully integrated supply chains that can guarantee food quality and drug safety. Using appropriate keywords, 298 articles were identified, and 205 were shortlisted for the analysis. All analysis and conclusions are based on the available literature. The outcomes of this paper identify new research directions in public health and supply chain management.

A decade advance in eco-efficiency and cost-benefits of emissions reduction targeting fine chemical manufacturers

Fine chemical industry, characterized of small scale, large heterogeneity, and high added value, is the most technology-intensive and dynamic sub-sector in chemical industry, but also has much high environmental factor in production. This study aims to explore green development pathways of about 60 fine chemicals manufacturers in a typical fine chemical industrial park with an annual output of 15 billion USD in China. We analyzed eco-efficiency and cost-benefits of emissions reduction of the park during 2011-2019 from multiple perspectives, by integrating decoupling index, data envelopment analysis, and linear econometric model. The key findings are: (1) the fine chemical industry has witnessed a volatile paradigm of absolute decoupling between economic growth and environmental pressure during the past decade, with a decoupling index of -2.2-12.4; (2) variation of eco-efficiency between benchmark enterprises and majority of enterprises are remarkable, at an average scope of 0.23-0.35, among which 77%-85% enterprises under-performed the average; and pharmaceutics production in particular needs a leapfrog to improve its performance substantially because 84%-95% of them were below the average; (3) pollutants emission plays a decisive role in affecting enterprises' eco-efficiency, and water pollutants work more in first half decade and air pollutants overturn in the second half; and (4) the marginal effect of control investment on water pollutants reductions has declined in 2019 by 66% (chemical oxygen demand (COD)) and 70% (ammonia nitrogen compounds (NH₃-N)) compared with those of 2012; however, air pollutants reductions marginal effect is still in climb stage in 2019 by 607% (sulfur dioxide (SO₂)) and 17% (nitrogen oxides (NOx)) compared with those in 2018. Fine chemical manufacturers are supposed to enforce a paradigm shift from end-of-pipe to systematic emissions control due to the decline trend of marginal cost-benefits on emissions reduction subsequently.

Emerging Challenges and Opportunities in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Distribution

The rise of personalised and highly complex drug product profiles necessitates significant advancements in pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution. Efforts to develop more agile, responsive, and reproducible manufacturing processes are being combined with the application of digital tools for seamless communication between process units, plants, and distribution nodes. In this paper, we discuss how novel therapeutics of high-specificity and sensitive nature are reshaping well-established paradigms in the pharmaceutical industry. We present an overview of recent research directions in pharmaceutical manufacturing and supply chain design and operations. We discuss topical challenges and opportunities related to small molecules and biologics, dividing the latter into patient- and non-specific. Lastly, we present the role of process systems engineering in generating decision-making tools to assist manufacturing and distribution strategies in the pharmaceutical sector and ultimately embrace the benefits of digitalised operations.

Technical Potential for Energy and GWP Reduction in Chemical–Pharmaceutical Industry in Germany and EU—Focused on Biologics and Botanicals Manufacturing

European policy demands climate neutrality by the year 2050. Therefore, any manufacturing optimization needs to be achieved in the well-known pareto of global warming potential (GWP) reduction combined with cost of goods (COG) reduction at increasing product amounts, while still being able to compete in the world market. The chemical–pharmaceutical industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries. The pharmaceutical industry operates with low batch sizes, but high margins. This study analyzes, based on the literature and Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi; English: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy)-funded project results, the technical potentials for energy and GWP reduction, while focusing on biologics and botanicals, because those are already widely based on natural raw material resources. The potential impact for green technologies is pointed out in relation to climate-neutral manufacturing.