Leveraging Global Scale and Collaboration for Pharma Supply Chain Innovation

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 are you using innovation across diverse and complex industry segments, specifically in logistics, CGT support, and specialized dose tracking, to create a unified, end-to-end commercial advantage for pharma manufacturers?

Martinez: Cencora is in a really unique position, sitting at the center of supply chain. We're also in a unique position, because we are a global company, and our reach and scale far exceeds just the US, but also internationally. The global products and solutions team sits across the entire enterprise, and really looking for ways to innovate, bring new products and solutions to market that are going to solve our customers biggest challenges.

The way we can do that is through collaboration. Cencora has always put a really huge focus on focusing on the customer, and this goes all the way up to executive leaders, and then our team members that are working with customers on a daily basis. Once we've developed these relationships—we've had some customers we've been working with for 10-20 years—we're able to innovate together, really bringing thoughtful and successful solutions to market that help the changing market dynamics, driving better efficiencies in the supply chain, and I would say, most importantly, creating healthier futures for everyone.