ABSTRACT
In response to the massive structural and infrastructural changes that are occurring on the horizon, supply chains in the life sciences and biopharmaceutical industries are changing rapidly. e rise of payfor-performance, bundled payments, increasing power of payers, personalized medicine, and shrinking public medical payment rates are forcing everyone in the supply chain to rethink their traditional roles. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the market for oncology medicines. As noted earlier, oncology is a growing Šeld, one that relies increasingly on biological therapies as a cure. e Šeld is also extremely fragmented and is under increasing pressure to provide results prior to payment (as we saw in the last chapter). As a result, participants in the supply chain are increasingly working closer together, and we are beginning to witness the blurring of boundaries among traditional group purchasing organizations (GPOs), wholesalers, hospital providers, and payers. Oncology medicine is a good indicative vector for the direction that the entire healthcare environment is headed, and is thus worthy of further study.
