How Integrated Solutions Deliver Measurable Value for Pharma Manufacturers

According to Tina Martinez, vice president and head of global products and solutions at Cencora, the wholesaler occupies a distinctive position within the global healthcare ecosystem, operating at the center of the pharmaceutical supply chain with a scale that extends well beyond the United States. As a global organization, the company is able to leverage its international reach to address complex challenges facing manufacturers, providers, and other healthcare stakeholders across diverse markets.

Central to this effort is Cencora’s global products and solutions team, which works across the entire enterprise to identify opportunities for innovation and to bring new products and services to market. The team’s mandate is focused on solving customers’ most pressing challenges—whether those relate to evolving market dynamics, operational complexity, or the need for greater efficiency across the supply chain.

Collaboration is a foundational element of Cencora’s approach. The company has long emphasized a customer-first philosophy that is embedded at every level of the organization, from executive leadership to frontline teams that engage with customers daily. These deep, long-standing relationships—many of which span 10 to 20 years—enable Cencora to work closely with partners to co-develop solutions that are both practical and forward-looking.

By innovating alongside customers rather than in isolation, Cencora is able to respond more effectively to shifts in the healthcare landscape, including changes in regulation, distribution models, and global demand. This collaborative model helps drive greater efficiency throughout the supply chain while ensuring that new solutions are aligned with real-world needs.

Ultimately, Cencora’s role at the intersection of global scale, supply chain expertise, and customer collaboration positions the company to not only improve operational performance, but also contribute to broader healthcare goals. By bringing thoughtful, scalable solutions to market, the company aims to support more resilient supply chains and, most importantly, help create healthier futures for patients worldwide.

She also shared her your philosophy and typical process for partnering with pharma manufacturers to co-create and pilot a new solution; how advanced solutions translate into measurable, quantifiable benefits; and much more.

A transcript of his conversation with PC can be found below.

PC: How do advanced solutions translate into measurable, quantifiable benefits for manufacturers?

Martinez: Global products and solutions, I look at our team as the build engine for the organization. So when we're thinking about innovation, how can we build products and solutions, and also streamline the work that we're already doing in a specific area, leveraging our processes? One area—clinical trials, supplies and distribution—we've been doing that for many years.

When you think about comparator sourcing, World Courier has been doing that for a long, long time, but how can we start thinking through streamlining processes, really having one point of contact that can not only do the comparator sourcing, but can also do the packaging, labeling, storage, and distribution, removing some of the fragmentation that's out there, and really creating a one-stop shop for our customers, making it easy for them?

I would say another area where we've worked closely on that is in response to our customers thinking through you mentioned medication adherence. I was actually just in Japan last week, and we have a really unique partnership with a wholesale distributor in Japan, and it's been 10 years in the making, and we have a team that's been working with them over the last 10 years, and I would say we're now their go-to when it comes to innovation or when it comes to new ideas.

They're very similar to Cencora, but they work in the Japanese market. So when we were out there, we started to pilot a new product called Dose Tracker, and this is one where they came to us with the idea of, how can we track patients taking their medication to really look at adherence, and how real-time patient data can help in terms of that adherence, and this is for commercially available oncology products today. We're doing a pilot study with them right now on that, and hoping to get some additional information to then be able to share and bring to the US market to see if there's a need here, but certainly, manufacturers are interested in that, and we're partnering with three different manufacturers on this today. Really looking forward to seeing those results, but got to see it live in person when I was out there last week.