An integrated supply chain management streamlines processes and increases profitability by delivering the right product to the right place, at the right time and at the lowest possible cost. Unlike commercial manufacturing supplies, clinical supplies planning is very dynamic and can often have last minute changes. Availability of patient kit when patient arrives at investigator site is very important for clinical trial success.

This results in overproduction of drug products to take care of last minute change in demand. R&D manufacturing is very expensive and overproduction of patient kits adds significant cost to the total cost of clinical trials.

An integrated supply chain can reduce the overproduction of drug products by efficient demand management, planning and inventory management. Implementation of ERP system (such as SAP) in R&D can have major ROI by an efficient supply and inventory management system and also by reducing overproduction.