When Global Health Supply Chains Go Local: Partnering with Countries to Support Their Manufacturing Goals

As seen throughout the current pandemic, the health needs of a population cannot be met without timely access to quality-assured health products.

COVID-19 has renewed global attention around the importance of diversifying a country’s supplier base, thereby opening up an immediate opportunity to strengthen and focus efforts around local and regional manufacturing of health products.

Marketlinks, USAID partners, and global thought leaders held a webinar on Thursday, February 24 discussing local production and how systems can ensure the quality of products, regulate supply, and promote the safe and appropriate use by individuals.

Speakers 

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Christine Malati (Moderator)
Senior Clinical Pharmacist, USAID/Bureau for Global Health, Office of HIV/AIDS

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Alison Collins (Moderator)
Health Systems Advisor, USAID/Bureau for Global Health, Office of Health Systems

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Chryste Best
Technical Advisor for the Product Quality and Compliance Department, FHI360 and Deputy Project Director, USAID Global Health Supply Chain–Quality Assurance Program 

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Iain Barton
Founding Principal, Health 4 Development

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Jude Nwokike
Vice President, USP and Director, PQM+ Program

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Khalid Mahmood
Health Systems Strengthening/Supply Chain Advisor, USAID/Pakistan, Office of Health, Population, and Nutrition

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Prashant Yadav
Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

Biographies

Christine Malati (Moderator)
Senior Clinical Pharmacist, USAID/Bureau for Global Health, Office of HIV/AIDS

Dr. Christine Malati is the senior clinical pharmacist in the USAID Bureau for Global Health in the Office of HIV/AIDS. She serves as the COR for the Global Health Supply Chain - Quality Assurance contract. Dr. Malati leads the HIV Program Team within the Division of Supply Chain for Health and provides technical support on quality assurance, quality control, HIV prevention and treatment, COVID-19 prevention and treatment, procurement of health commodities, product life cycle management, and supplier relationship management. Dr. Malati, in partnership with colleagues from Purdue University, created a health equity fellowship for pharmacists and serves as a co-fellowship director. She is also the primary reviewer of ADS 312 requests for pharmaceuticals for the Agency. Dr. Malati completed her doctorate of pharmacy from Rutgers University in 2007, and a clinical pharmacokinetics research fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in 2010. She plans to pursue a postgraduate diploma in health economics at the University of York (UK) in the fall.

Alison Collins (Moderator)
Health Systems Advisor, USAID/Bureau for Global Health, Office of Health Systems

Alison Collins is a Health Systems Advisor with USAID’s Office of Health Systems in the Bureau for Global Health. She joined USAID as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) in 2018 and currently serves as the AOR for the Promoting the Quality of Medicines Plus (PQM+) program, and the gender and youth focal point for her office. Alison oversees centrally managed awards for global health systems strengthening (HSS) programs, leads new program/project design activities, and provides technical support in the areas of HSS, pharmaceutical systems strengthening, and COVID-19 prevention and response. Prior to joining USAID, Alison worked at Management Sciences for Health (MSH) supporting the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of global HSS programs. She completed a dual MBA in Nonprofit Management and M.A. in Sustainable International Development at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in 2018.

Chryste Best
Technical Advisor for the Product Quality and Compliance Department, FHI360 and Deputy Project Director, USAID Global Health Supply Chain – Quality Assurance Program

Chryste Best is a microbiologist and a senior quality assurance (QA) professional with more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, food safety, medical device, and biotechnology industries. She spent 12 of those years working as a microbiologist and inspector for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration where she was responsible for conducting site inspections of domestic and international pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic manufacturers to ensure compliance to good manufacturing practices (GMP) as well as good storage and distribution practices (GSDP). Chryste currently works for FHI 360 where she is a technical advisor for the Product Quality and Compliance (PQC) department and serves as the Deputy Project Director of USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain–Quality Assurance Program (GHSC-QA). She leads the Supplier Audits and Evaluations team and provides thought leadership to the development and implementation of PQC’s risk management and mitigation strategies. In addition to audits of international suppliers of global health commodities, Chryste has conducted and overseen numerous audits of local pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesalers. Prior to her work with FHI 360, she worked for Management Sciences for Health (MSH) where she served as the product quality assurance manager for the USAID-funded Supply Chain Management Systems (SCMS) Project.

Iain Barton
Founding Principal, Health 4 Development

Iain Barton is an expert in innovating, incubating and scaling best practice functions in Global Health. Dr Barton (Qualification: MB, ChB, Medicine at the University of Cape Town) is a medical doctor with 10 years clinical practice, 20 years in healthcare supply chain management and 2 years in healthcare systems advisory. Acknowledged by his peers as a global health pioneer, he specializes in healthcare systems solution design, implementation and market shaping start-ups. Iain has a deep and broad professional experience in both commercial and public health sectors and before launching Health 4 Development, he was the CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). He was responsible for developing the Regional Distribution Centers to support the global scale-up of the US Government’s PEPFAR (The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) from 2005 – 2015 and for the Supply Chain Control Tower that supports the Global Fund’s Pooled Procurement Mechanism from 2008 – 2018. As the Executive Vice President – Healthcare and Healthcare Strategy Executive, he led the coordination of healthcare strategy, innovation, solution design and new market expansion for Imperial Logistics, Africa’s largest pharma supply organization. Additional innovations developed under his leadership include Unjani Clinics, Warehouse-in-a-Box, Clinic-in-a-Box and SSiH – a mega-distributor model enhancing medicine access across African markets. Iain was the co-founder and CEO of the pharmaceutical supply chain specialist, PHD and thereafter served as Group CEO for RTT Logistics. As a dedicated South African, he was also the founding Board Member of South Africa’s Public Health Enhancement Fund and has served on the Advisory Boards of Merck For Mothers, People That Deliver and The ARC (Africa Resource Centre). Iain Barton currently serves on the Advisory Boards for the University of Cape Town’s Department of Global Surgery and Insights By Experts and is a Senior Fellow with Management Sciences for Health (MSH).

Jude Nwokike
Vice President, USP and Director, PQM+ Program

Jude Nwokike, Vice President, USP, Director of the PQM+ Program: Mr. Nwokike has more than 20 years of experience in strengthening medical products regulation and quality assurance systems. Prior to his current role, Mr. Nwokike served as director of the predecessor Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) program. Before joining USP, Mr. Nwokike was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) liaison working with the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) antiretroviral drugs program. Prior to the FDA, Mr. Nwokike worked with USAID-funded programs at Management Sciences for Health (MSH). He also served as principal pharmacist for the Government of Botswana. Mr. Nwokike is a pharmacist by training with postgraduate degrees in pharmaceutical sciences and public health. He has served on international expert advisory and review committees, professional scientific associations, and international technical working groups. He is the recipient of the 2020 IPS Medal Award, which is awarded by the Industrial Pharmacy Section of the International Pharmaceutical Federation.

Khalid Mahmood
Health Systems Strengthening/Supply Chain Advisor, USAID/Pakistan, Office of Health, Population, and Nutrition

Khalid Mahmood is working as a Health Systems Strengthening/Supply Chain Advisor in the Office of Health, Population and Nutrition (OHPN), USAID/Pakistan.  He joined USAID/Pakistan in 2005 and is currently managing the health systems strengthening portfolio with two key activities around public health supply chain and quality of medicines. He holds a Master’s degree in English Literature and an MS in Public Health. Mr. Mahmood enjoys listening to classic music, and writing short stories including ghost stories and stories for children.

Prashant Yadav
Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

Prashant Yadav is a globally recognized scholar in the area of healthcare supply chains. He is Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Affiliate Professor of Technology & Operations Management at INSEAD, and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of many peer-reviewed scientific publications and his work has also been featured in prominent print and broadcast media. In addition to his roles in academia and think tank, Prashant serves on the boards of select health and development focused companies, and a social impact fund. In his previous roles, Prashant has worked as Strategy Leader-Supply Chain at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Vice President of Healthcare at the William Davidson Institute and Faculty at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan; Professor of Supply Chain Management at the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program and Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. His policy advisory roles related to global access to medicines and health products have included Chair of the Market Dynamics Advisory group of the Global Fund (2012-14), co-chair of PSM at the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (2010-2012), Chair of the AMFm Co-payment Technical Advisory Committee (CTAG) at the Global Fund (2010-2011). Yadav has been asked for expert testimony on medicine supply chains in the US Congress and in the Parliaments and legislative bodies of many countries, and has also served on numerous National Academy of Medicine Expert committees. He works closely with a few country governments, and philanthropic organizations on healthcare supply chain strategy. Yadav trained as a Chemical Engineer and obtained his PhD in Management Science & Operations Research. He lives in Bethesda, MD and Fontainebleau, France.