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Vol 32 - No 03 - May 2006 Branch news: Thames Valley - Visit to IDIS Sixteen members gathered at the Head Office of IDIS on a cold wintry afternoon. We were welcomed by Karen Jessop, the Health and Safety Officer, who gave us an introduction to the company. IDIS is a privately owned company, established 17 years, in the field of supplying unlicensed medicines to individual patients, worldwide. The IDIS Head Office is at Weybridge and the warehouse is located on a local trading estate from which they ship to 60 countries including the UK. Karen explained that IDIS had built up a niche market dealing with products that other large pharmaceutical companies would not distribute i.e. items where the licenses had already expired and reached the end of their product cycle. IDIS are able to acquire these medicines through the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare Agency) approval mechanism, and they can supply individual patients with a continuous supply of medicines after the license has expired. At this point we were taken by minibus to their packing warehouse where Andy Steele, the Warehouse Manager gave a guided tour of the facility. The warehouse was a single storey building of approx 7500 square feet, with one main incoming and outgoing delivery point. Typically, 800 products are stored at any one time, but unusually there is no pallet storage and the stock is mainly segregated into wire cages, supplemented by small wall mounted trays, this offers 2900 bay locations. Products being delivered to the warehouse are bar coded on arrival to give full location tracabillity. Customer orders are received online daily via their Head Office at Weybridge. On receipt of the customer order a shipping note (which doubles as the picking list) is produced, stock control is maintained via the bar code scan on the shipping note. Andy stressed that; customer service is paramount, based on 8000 shipments per month a 98% service level has been achieved. Karen Jessop then explained the Regulatory Process of obtaining unlicensed medicines in the UK, the summary being: 1. The product is requested for import or acquired in the UK. 2. The notification to MHRA of the intention to import/acquired the product. 3. MHRA acknowledge the receipt of the request. 4. If after 28 days no objection is received from MHRA, IDIS may acquire the product. 5. If an urgent request is received from a patient (life saving) a fast track sequence can be initiated. The final presentation of the evening was by David Regan, the Procurement Manager. He outlined that there are currently 9 people in the Procurement department and in the last quarter of 2005, a strategic review of the purchasing function of the company was carried out. This was formally executed through a Supplier Management Programme. Two main area of improvement were identified: 1. Global sourcing capability. 2. Supplier relationship management. To summarise, David highlighted the main benefits of the Supplier Management Programme: 1. To offer an improved responsiveness to customer requirements, reducing costs and improving value. 2. To improve market knowledge and competitiveness, adding value to the business. 3. To create a more transparent process throughout the supply chain. The evening ended with a brief question and answer session, and a buffet, we then all departed through the snow flurries along the M25 and M4 corridors. Tony Read FIOM Related Topics:
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