An Empirical Analysis of Risk Mitigation in the Pharmaceutical Industry Supply Chain: A Developing-Country Perspective

Global pharmaceutical supply-chain risk mitigation has become an important issue in the corporate boardroom. This article reports on the empirical findings of the quantification of risks that decision makers consider most important when deciding on a risk portfolio to mitigate and the manner in which risks are prioritized according to their importance. The empirical findings suggest that decision makers attached great importance to counterfeit, Food and Drugs Board, and exchange-rate fluctuations. With respect to risk-mitigation strategies, risk reduction is considered most important, followed by risk avoidance. Dynamic sensitivity analysis with respect to a change (increase) in the Food and Drugs Board did not result in any change in the ranking of risk policy options, while a change (increase) in counterfeit resulted in a change in the ranking between risk reduction and risk avoidance. Risk avoidance ranked number one, followed by risk reduction. Implications distilled from this article are far-reaching for the Ghanaian pharmaceutical firms' managers. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.