Security of America’s Medical Product Supply Chain – Public Workshop

The National Academies’ Committee on Security of America’s Medical Product Supply Chain will host its second meeting and a public workshop from December 1-3, 2020.

The public workshop will be held on December 1 (12:00pm to 3:30pm) and December 2 (11:30am to 3:30pm).

Objectives for the public workshop include the following:

• Consider on-the-ground perspectives from end users of the medical supply chain (e.g., patients, clinicians, health systems) when it comes to:
  • what makes a medical product critical/essential
  • outcome measures that matter to end users
  • approaches to mitigate the impact of failures in the medical supply chain
• Examine current lists of “critical/essential” medical products with attention to how these lists were formulated and how they are used to inform decisions;
• Discuss key considerations for the formulation of a unified list of critical medical products;
• Consider tactical approaches for improving supply chain resiliency.

Background

In response to the CARES Act, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will establish an ad hoc committee to conduct a study to examine the security of the United States medical product supply chain. The committee will assess and evaluate the dependence of the United States on critical drugs and devices that are sourced or manufactured outside of the United States and provide recommendations to improve the resiliency of the medical supply chain.

The committee will:

1) assess and evaluate the dependence of the United States, including the private commercial sector, States, and the Federal Government, on critical drugs and devices that are sourced or manufactured outside of the United States, which may include an analysis of:

• the supply chain of critical drugs and devices of greatest priority to providing health care;
• any potential public health security or national security risks associated with reliance on critical drugs and devices sourced or manufactured outside of the United States, which may include responses to previous or existing shortages or public health emergencies, such as infectious disease outbreaks, bioterror attacks, and other public health threats;
• any existing supply chain information gaps, as applicable; and
• potential economic impact and other considerations associated with increased domestic manufacturing; and

2) provide recommendations to improve the resiliency of the supply chain for critical drugs and devices and to address any supply vulnerabilities or potential disruptions of such products that would significantly affect or pose a threat to public health security or national security, as appropriate, which may include strategies to:

• promote supply chain redundancy and contingency planning;
• encourage domestic manufacturing, including consideration of economic impacts, if any;
• improve supply chain information gaps;
• improve planning considerations for medical product supply chain capacity during public health emergencies; and
• promote the accessibility of such drugs and devices.