Building Resilient Healthcare Supply Chains Across Asia Pacific

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical vulnerabilities in global healthcare supply chains. In response, this initiative, led by the National Center for APEC, Johnson & Johnson, UPS, and Access Partnership, presents practical recommendations to help governments across Asia Pacific build more resilient, efficient, and future-ready healthcare supply systems.

Healthcare supply chains are long, tightly regulated, and globally interconnected. Most production is concentrated in Asia, yet disruptions – whether regulatory, environmental, or geopolitical – can cascade across borders. To address these challenges, the report outlines six priority actions:

Our Recommendations:

1. Maintain and strengthen an open, integrated supply chain model.
   Immediate steps include accelerating regulatory harmonisation and mutual recognition efforts, creating common data standards, and enabling digitalisation. All effort should be made to reduce frictions to trade, and create a stable, transparent, and predictable regulatory framework for businesses.
2. Identify a discrete reference list of essential medicines and supplies.
   There is value in recognising a foundational list of essential medicines (EML) for times of crisis.
3. Integrate commercial viability as a key consideration when designing solutions.
   Any proposed solutions will require long-term government commitments through budgetary, regulatory, or policy actions to change the current paradigms.
4. Avoid complex and disruptive requirements to establish supply chain resilience.
   Attempts to establish supply chain resilience for essential medicines and medical supplies should avoid stockpiling, ever-warm production, or localisation requirements.
5. Practice a higher degree of business engagement and consultation.
   An effective crisis response requires collaboration to develop early indicators and streamline procedures that support import/export, regulatory approvals, production, and workforce deployment during times of crisis.
6. Support international co-operation.
   Governments should use trade agreements and supply chain partnerships to set rules, co-ordinate and reduce regulatory heterogeneity.

Together, these actions aim to improve healthcare access, support innovation, and ensure supply chain resilience during future crises.

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