Just under half of applicable respondents said that the COVID-19 pandemic had significant impact on their raw and ancillary materials and supply chain, and under a third said that they had suffered only some impact from the pandemic.
Access to raw/ancillary materials was the top aspect of supply chain most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic identified by half of applicable survey respondents. Meanwhile, a quarter of respondents said that shipping and logistics in their supply chain took the worst hit.
How has COVID-19 affected the way blood donation and screening are carried out?
In this open-answered question, most respondents said that blood donation and screening had been significantly affected by COVID-19.
The most reported issue was process delays caused by extra care taken in blood donation, testing and collection, closely followed by limited number of donations.
Responses included:
“Increased duration of collection due to additional screening and safety practices in place”
“More precautions”
“Significant reduction in donors”
“Patient scheduling has been affected”
“Check the history of SARS-CoV-2 infection when blood donation is done”
“Additional screening for presence of COVID-19 antibodies”
“Need to find new target groups for blood donation, as some of the regular donors are reluctant to donate during this time”
“More request for PBMC”
“Donors' access the local [bank] due to lockdown and the blood contamination by the virus”
“Testing is must and that has delayed the process, incurring additional costs, and the worst issue is the donors are showing detest for the new procedure”
Almost two thirds of applicable respondents said that the pandemic had caused them to re-evaluate or change their manufacturing or supply strategies.
Most of those respondents said they had planned for second source vendors or carried out new risk mitigation strategies because of the pandemic. 48% of them said that they had carried out more forecasting for product demand.
Which raw/ancillary material has been the most difficult to source during the pandemic?
Our respondents most commonly answered that laboratory equipment such as PPE and single use consumables were the most difficult to source during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other responses named biological supplies such as blood donations, antibodies and viral vectors as having been the scarcest during the pandemic.
"Leukapheresis collection”
“Endonuclease, Capto Q resin, cell cultures media”
“PPE”
“Anything related to PCR and sequencing”
“Antibodies”
“Reagents, disposables, equipment”
“Lentivirus”
“Bags and filters”
“Material biologically engineered”
“Drugs for procedural sedation (propofol etc)”
“Blood”
“Primary packaging”
“Some nucleotides”
