Rethinking Pharma Procurement in a Future-Ready Model

While this shift accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact has been long-lasting. In 2020, an Indegene-hosted panel with senior leaders from Sanofi, Pfizer, Merck, and AstraZeneca (Anne Lacheze-Watine, Kyle Peckens, Russell Huang, and Barry Kull) captured the early signals of this evolution. Five years on, those insights remain foundational, but the landscape has matured.

With digital-first engagement models, new category dynamics, and rising pressure to deliver value across the brand lifecycle, pharma procurement strategy is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This article revisits those panel insights through the lens of 2025 realities - integrating updated data, contextual shifts, and best practices shaping the future of procurement in pharma.

In 2025, operating models in pharma procurement are designed for speed, visibility, and resilience. The shift from transactional processing to strategic orchestration is now fully embedded in how leading teams operate.

Procurement teams are working with unified platforms that integrate sourcing, contracting, supplier risk management, and analytics. This consolidation enables faster decision-making, reduces friction across functions, and improves accountability from vendors.

Taken together, these changes reflect how pharma procurement strategy has evolved into a business-critical capability. The focus is no longer on execution efficiency alone. It is on enabling smarter, faster decisions that create long-term commercial value.

Omnichannel engagement is now recognized as a commercial imperative. Procurement’s involvement has grown beyond vendor selection to helping design flexible, measurable omnichannel strategies that align with business outcomes.

During the early pandemic years, the 2020 panel described procurement’s reactive integration—fueling support for medical and marketing teams adapting to remote HCP engagement. Today, procurement plays a strategic role in enabling omnichannel campaigns by:

This mirrors industry trends where pharma procurement functions are shifting from cost-centric thinking to outcome-based strategy. A recent analysis by Relevate Health highlights how marketing procurement teams are now maximizing omnichannel ROI—not only through spend efficiencies but by ensuring measurable business impact through optimized vendor engagement.

During the 2020 panel, industry leaders emphasized the need for greater speed, flexibility, and alignment across enabling functions. “Speed to contract” was a recurring theme, with the acknowledgment that delays were often less about sourcing and more about cross-functional bottlenecks.

That focus has only deepened. Today, pharma procurement strategy around category management is defined not just by cost efficiency, but by how quickly and effectively teams can mobilize resources to support evolving brand needs.

Procurement teams are moving from rigid policy frameworks to more agile ways of working—streamlining playbooks, pre-aligning contract templates, and coordinating early with legal, compliance, and medical teams to fast-track execution.

Equally, the supplier landscape has become more fluid. Many organizations are expanding beyond traditional partners to include innovation-led vendors, digital content studios, analytics platforms, and modular engagement providers. The ability to bring these players together under one category vision is emerging as a core competency.

This evolution reflects a broader shift: category management is no longer just an operational lever. It’s a driver of commercial speed, experimentation, and value creation across the product lifecycle.

In the 2020 panel, industry leaders noted that digital and analytical tools were key to freeing up bandwidth and enabling buyers to focus on more strategic work. Productivity, they emphasized, wasn’t about doing more—it was about doing different work, better.

That mindset continues to guide modern pharma procurement transformation. Today, productivity is achieved not just through automation, but through intelligent orchestration of workflows, teams, and data.

Procurement teams are working in closer proximity to cross-functional groups—marketing, medical, legal, and finance—often embedded in pods or agile teams that manage brand support in real time. The goal: eliminate handoffs, reduce delays, and enable faster experimentation across the commercial lifecycle.

Advanced analytics and workflow engines now help procurement teams prioritize high-value activities, monitor real-time performance, and shift quickly when business priorities change. By integrating operational speed with strategic focus, procurement is moving from transactional support to transformation enablement.

In many ways, this shift echoes what panelists suggested in 2020: that procurement’s true value lies in helping the business move faster, not just cheaper.

The instincts shared by panelists in 2020 have proven prescient. Procurement has moved from the sidelines to the center, enabling omnichannel engagement, unlocking innovation, and driving measurable outcomes.

Challenges remain. Volatility, compliance pressures, and rising expectations continue to test the limits. But with the right tools, talent, and mindset, pharma procurement is well-positioned to lead the next wave of transformation.

Watch the original 2020 panel here to revisit the conversation that helped shape where we are today.