Resilience on a global scale: Protecting the drug supply chain from adversity
Life can be chaotic, but with proper preparation, our reaction to chaos can be orderly and effective. Cencora applies that same discipline to the pharmaceutical supply chain. Our response to unexpected circumstances is driven by our unwavering commitment to expanding access to care through our global reach and local connection in communities around the world.
As we prioritize the needs of patients and healthcare providers, we make every effort to deliver on our promise of creating healthier futures, even during challenging events — from local flooding to regional power outages to global pandemics.
Planning with an “all hazards” approach
Cencora’s Global Business Resilience (GBR) program is an integrated, company-wide initiative designed to help the organization proactively anticipate, prepare for, respond, and adapt to incremental changes and sudden disruptions. The GBR program provides centralized governance, tools, and assurance processes to integrate incident/crisis management and business continuity into our everyday operations.
Through this program, we take several steps to mitigate the risks posed by unforeseen events:
- Leverage advanced forecasting and information-gathering systems
- Recommend and provide guidance for resilient technologies, including alternative communications and power
- Conduct regular emergency preparedness training
These measures, and many others, better equip us to maintain secure, timely delivery of critical therapies to our customers, even in the face of adversity.
“We engage in holistic planning for all of Cencora based on how each area of the business actually performs its functions,” said Tatiana Moklebust, Vice President, Global Business Resilience, Cencora. “Our business continuity plans employ an ‘all hazards’ approach co-developed, implemented, and tested with each business area. Testing is training. We have all the plans in place, but we hope we never have to use them."
In addition to planning around large-scale, consolidated assets, Cencora’s certified business resilience professionals also plan for more distributed resources, including our global workforce.
“We do a lot of planning with remote team members,” said Moklebust. “They’re often working from their homes. What happens if they lose power? What if their internet goes offline? We help teams prepare for the unexpected.”
Welcome to the Global Watch Center
With meticulous plans in place for a wide range of scenarios, Cencora relies on a team dedicated to maintaining uninterrupted, 24/7/365 situational awareness of all events that could negatively impact business operations and which may require a coordinated response.
Using a variety of information-gathering tools and a flexible emergency notification platform, the Global Watch Center provides a shared situational understanding aimed at supporting effective decision-making at all levels, from the local Incident Manager to the Executive Lead Team.
“My team is continually monitoring, gathering, and analyzing data to identify potential events and repercussions that could affect our business,” said Robert Crow, Senior Director, Emergency Response and Crisis Management, Cencora. “We then share that information with the relevant business leaders to help them respond effectively and with minimal impacts to the customers and patients who rely on us every day.”
The information collected is vital to supporting Cencora’s overall resilience and risk management goals, both for our organization and our customers. The Global Watch Center uses it to develop a common operating picture and provide sound situational awareness to decision makers before and during events affecting our operations worldwide.
Preparing for the unavoidable
Business resilience is not just about responding when disruption happens; it’s about building the visibility, partnerships, and contingency plans that help keep medicines moving before customers or patients feel the impact.
Scheduled disruptions, such as sporting events, political rallies, and concerts, offer opportunities to make prior arrangements, including making sure our team members and partners have the proper credentials and security clearances.
“Different cities have different requirements,” said Crow. “We do our best to address those things ahead of time so everyone at Cencora is able to focus on the task at hand during unusual circumstances.”
Early preparation is critical to maintaining continuity during known events, but it’s even more important when it comes to unexpected catastrophes.
“There are impact zones for which our teams may need authorization to provide support during adverse events, like an earthquake. Our team works every day on building those relationships and understanding those processes to make sure we can get trucks on the road and into those impact zones to support our customers — hospitals, health systems, and pharmacies — that are helping with the recovery process,” said Crow.
While we make every effort to avoid changes to delivery schedules, delays are always a possibility. When potentially disruptive events are on the horizon, we strongly encourage customers to plan ahead, and we work with them to make adjustments where possible.
Weathering the storms
Cencora plays an important role in pharmaceutical distribution and healthcare supply continuity, and severe weather events such as hurricanes, snowstorms, floods, and extreme heat can have significant operational consequences.
To reduce that risk, resilience planning typically emphasizes preparedness measures such as monitoring weather threats, identifying vulnerable locations and routes, and putting contingency plans in place before disruptions escalate.
“We’re constantly monitoring the weather and sending out daily hazard reports for each hemisphere,” said Crow. “Based in part on our reports, our response teams offer guidance on ordering and transportation impacts to our customers to help keep things running smoothly when the weather gets rough.”
Cencora can mitigate the impact of weather events by rerouting shipments, balancing inventory across facilities, using alternate carriers or transportation lanes, and prioritizing critical products for delivery when conditions are constrained.
Business continuity planning also includes communication protocols, so customers, partners, and team members receive timely updates about potential service impacts and recovery actions. These capabilities help the organization maintain essential service levels even when local conditions are difficult.
“Team member safety is a top priority for us. Our planning enables us to get back out on the road as soon as it’s safe, so we can get products to our customers, and they can help their patients,” said Crow.
By reviewing past disruptions, testing response plans, and aligning teams across logistics, customer operations, technology, and risk management, we continually strengthen our customers’ ability to withstand future events. Our investments in facility preparedness, backup systems, and scenario-based planning further support continuity during extreme weather.
Mitigating weather-related problems is not just about reacting to storms; it’s about building a more agile and dependable organization that can continue supporting healthcare providers, pharmacies, and patients in any kind of weather.
DSCSA has global implications
Even well-intentioned legislation can cause disruptions on a global scale that need to be addressed. For example, the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) affects Cencora’s business beyond domestic operations, because any prescription drug product that enters the U.S. supply chain must meet applicable DSCSA requirements, regardless of where it was manufactured or previously handled.
Countries and locations involved in manufacturing, packaging, warehousing, or shipping products intended for the U.S. market may need to support DSCSA-aligned data, serialization, and verification practices as part of cross-border compliance. In that sense, the law has an international operational impact; while local laws continue to apply in each country, global supply chain participants connected to U.S.-bound products must be prepared to meet DSCSA-related requirements to avoid delays, exceptions, or disruptions.
As the industry prepared for DSCSA implementation, Cencora worked closely with manufacturer partners to identify products arriving without the required data needed to move through the supply chain.
We granted dashboard access to select manufacturers so they could review current data about potentially affected shipments, including the product, lot information, location, and value of inventory sitting in quarantine. With this information, issues could potentially be resolved more efficiently, and products could continue moving toward patients.
That work was significant, because supply chain data gaps can quickly become patient access challenges. “If there’s product tied up in quarantine, there may be a patient that can’t get it because we can’t move the product,” said Lauren Walten, Senior Director, Generic Category Management, Cencora.
Since nine out of 10 prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. are generic medicines, even small disruptions in generic supply can create a significant ripple effect for pharmacies and the patients they serve.
Contracting for resilience
Another way Cencora’s customers and partners achieve greater business resilience is through contractual agreements intended to stabilize the supply chain or to provide assurances that products will be purchased.
“When appropriate, we engage in multi-year stability agreements with select manufacturers, and they hold months and months of inventory on hand in the U.S.” said Walten. For example, drugs designed to offer relief during the annual cold and flu season are often in high demand, so maintaining a ready supply is important.
“All the pharmacies that tried to get generic flu medicine from Cencora over the last four flu seasons have been able to do so,” said Walten. “When the parent of a sick child goes to get their generic flu medicine from a Good Neighbor Pharmacy, it's there.”
“Those stability agreements have allowed us to stabilize the supply chain and our service levels, so if there is a heavier flu season, a heavier cough and cold season, we can react quickly,” said Walten. “Manufacturers are willing to make that investment and produce the product, because they know that if it isn’t used this season, they can sell it next season. That, in turn, allows us to provide strong service to our pharmacy customers.”
This contract-based resilience strategy can benefit a wide variety of customers, including those dealing with specialty drugs. At Cencora’s Blue Point Laboratories, we buy full lots of oncology products and typically hold several months’ worth of inventory based on historical demand to service the needs of our customers.
When the cost of platinum soared in 2026, it created uncertainty around this key ingredient in many oncology drugs. Customers expressed concerns that manufacturers would be unable to manufacture these products or that the cost of the products would go up substantially. This led to unusual buying behaviors as some entities attempted to stock up before price increases or shortages could occur.
While the situation did put manageable pressure on certain oncology drug supplies, the buffer supply that we routinely stock and the swift work of our replenishment operations team kept us in excellent shape to service the needs of our customers.
“In some situations, we partner with multiple manufacturers with differentiated supply chains,” said Charles Hartenstine, Vice President, Strategic Global Sourcing, Cencora. “If there’s any type of disruption, this model has shown to be quite resilient. It enables us to have a reliable supply of finished stock and allows us to be partnered with the right suppliers who can help us drive the highest service levels possible. Most importantly, continuity of supply allows for continuity in patient therapy.”
Resilience through planning, vigilance, and teamwork
With multiple teams and strategies in place all around the world, Cencora is well-prepared to identify and address challenges to the pharmaceutical supply chain that occur daily around the globe.
As always, patient access and product integrity remain our top priorities. Whether it’s through investments in infrastructure, innovative logistics solutions, or strategic partnerships, we’re doing everything we can to maintain continuity in the drug supply chain no matter what’s going on in the world around us.
