Sourcing hard-to-find medicines without compromising compliance
Drug shortages and orphan treatments demand creative sourcing — but creativity has to stay inside the lines. How we think about hard-to-source requests.
Hard-to-source requests — from a hospital searching for an orphan oncology treatment to a pharmacy chain navigating a shortage of a cardiovascular staple — are where sourcing becomes genuinely difficult. The work has two directions at once: expand the search radius, and narrow the compliance margin.
Expand the search, narrow the margin
Expanding the search means drawing on a qualified network across the EEA and qualified international partners. Narrowing the compliance margin means the opposite discipline: every supplier that enters the search has to already be qualified under our SOP, every batch has to come with complete documentation, and every product has to match the authorisation route we intend to use. A broad search with loose paperwork is not an option.
- Qualified supplier network across the EEA
- Partner channels for specialty and orphan treatments
- Documented batch provenance on every offer
- Route check against WDA scope before commitment
- Pricing transparency separated from sourcing decisions
What a hard-to-source request looks like
A typical request comes in three forms. A hospital looking for a specific oncology product that is in temporary shortage on their domestic market. A pharmacy chain trying to maintain continuity on a chronic-disease line during a manufacturer pause. A treating physician asking, through their hospital pharmacy, for a named-patient supply of an unauthorised product. Each has a different compliance route — and the work begins with identifying which route applies before any supplier is contacted.
“Speed and compliance are not opposing forces. The fastest sourcing is the kind that doesn't have to be redone.”
Documentation we ask for upfront
Before we begin a hard-to-source search, we ask the requesting partner for three pieces of information: the exact product description (active substance, strength, presentation, manufacturer if known), the regulatory route they intend to use on their side (compassionate use, named-patient, parallel import, etc.), and confirmation of their own authorisation. With those three items, the search converges quickly. Without them, it does not converge at all.
- Active substance, strength, presentation, manufacturer
- Quantity needed and timeline
- Regulatory route on the receiving side
- Receiving authorisation reference
Why we sometimes say no
There are requests we cannot fulfil — product lines without a compliant route, suppliers that cannot meet our qualification bar, timelines that would require shortcuts. Saying no is part of the service. A reliable wholesaler is one whose yes is credible, which requires that its no is used when needed.
Where we add the most value
We are most useful when a request is unusual but routable. Common-and-easy requests are well-served by larger generalist distributors; impossible requests should be declined directly. The middle ground — a specialty oncology product available in three EEA markets, a cold-chain biologic in shortage, a niche route requiring named-patient documentation — is where the combination of network depth and compliance discipline produces something neither a pure broker nor a pure compliance consultancy can.