Portraits from the pharmaceutical wholesale

Interview with Dr Zoltán Balázs, Group Logistics Director of PHOENIX Pharma Zrt.

Please tell us about how you became the Logistics Director of one of the leading national pharmaceutical wholesalers. What have been the main stages of your career so far?

As a child, I used to go to the pharmacy where my mother worked as a pharmacy assistant. I still have many memories of this place. These experiences later influenced my career choice, and I went to study at the Faculty of Pharmacy at SOTE. During my studies, I worked in several pharmacies as an intern.

After graduation, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry, in the quality assurance department of a Hungarian pharmaceutical manufacturer, where I was responsible for instrumental analytical quality control. This phase of my career lasted 5 years, after which I moved into pharmaceutical wholesale, where I was immediately involved in the start-up of a state-of-the-art warehouse in a greenfield project.

I joined PHOENIX Pharma in 2000. At that time, the company was in an intensive phase of growth, so the period that followed brought with it a very special professional challenge. We have built the distribution centre in Polgár as a greenfield investment, and together with acquisitions we have integrated a total of six sites, while also making continuous technological progress. We have set up a new picking system in several of our units, introduced paperless picking, and improved the process of identifying deliveries to a level that practically eliminates false deliveries.

Were these processes forced by legal requirements?

Yes, medicines are a special product that are handled under specific and strict rules to ensure that they are distributed from wholesalers to pharmacies and hospitals in impeccable quality. The main regulation is the European Commission's Good Distribution Practice (GDP) Directive, issued in 2013, which regulates in detail, among other things, the conditions under which medicines must be stored and transported, and the control processes that must be implemented in each workflow, including order taking. GDP is also part of the Hungarian legal framework. These rules are a strong guarantee of the quality of medicines. But of course, some of our developments have gone beyond these requirements and have been driven primarily by the need to provide a modern and reliable service to pharmacies.

What were the examples?

We have put a lot of energy and attention into the digitalisation of our services over the last 20 years. Today, around 95% of pharmacies order electronically, but there is also an electronic link with manufacturers, so invoices and delivery notes are also digitised. Digitalisation is constantly opening up new opportunities in logistics. We have installed automated picking machines in several of our warehouses: orders from pharmacies are processed by the system so that the products in the warehouse are placed in the delivery box without human touch. I believe that pharmaceutical logistics will continue to be one of the most innovative business areas in the future, building links between hundreds of suppliers, manufacturers and thousands of pharmacies, hospitals, and other customers.

Which areas belong to the logistics department at PHOENIX?

As the company's logistics director, I am responsible for warehousing, transport, facility management, investments, procurement, process improvement and wholesale IT. With six sites and a market share of around 45% in the sector, PHOENIX now has a broad coverage, supplying both pharmacies and hospitals. We even offer a so-called pre-wholesale service, which means that we provide the infrastructure and the professionals to carry out the service. This logistics activity is built between manufacturing and wholesale, so that the stock remains the property of the business partner.

What motivates you in your daily work?

Seeing the meaning of my work. Together with my colleagues, we work to get the medicines and other health-related products to those who need them, and in doing so, we contribute to improving the quality of life for many people. The result of every new development, every efficiency improvement, is that we can help more people, faster each time.

I am particularly pleased that we have an increasing proportion of products in our range that are about preserving health. Health awareness is spreading at an amazing rate, and in this area, too, high standards of care are important, and we have a lot to contribute to this.

Among the motivations, I must mention the positive feedback we receive from our customers. This is particularly important for me, and it always makes me forget the stressful moments that inevitably arise in my work.

Do you have time for a private life with so much to do?

Yes, of course, for me it is important to have a work-life balance. We have two grown-up children, my thirty-year-old son is an architect, and my twenty-seven-year-old daughter, although she has a degree in economics, has moved into the health sector, and is studying to become a physiotherapist. They both are about to start a family. My wife is a secondary school teacher and, like me, has an interest in science. In my free time I try to spend a lot of time in nature, I love garden activities and I have a new hobby that has really taken me in, which is barbecue. As well as being out in nature, it is a good opportunity for creativity and, last but not least, it is a great social activity.