title: Pharmaceutical supply chain risks: a systematic review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Supply of medicine as a strategic product in any health system is a top priority. Pharmaceutical companies, a major player of the drug supply chain, are subject to many risks. These risks disrupt the supply of medicine in many ways such as their quantity and quality and their delivery to the right place and customers and at the right time. Therefore risk identification in the supply process of pharmaceutical companies and mitigate them is highly recommended.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  In this study it is attempted to investigate pharmaceutical supply chain risks with perspective of manufacturing companies.
  
  
  METHODS
  Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science bibliographic databases and Google scholar scientific search engines were searched for pharmaceutical supply chain risk management studies with 6 different groups of keywords. All results found by keywords were reviewed and none-relevant articles were excluded by outcome of interests and researcher boundaries of study within 4 steps and through a systematic method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Nine articles were included in the systematic review and totally 50 main risks based on study outcome of interest extracted which classified in 7 categories. Most of reported risks were related to supply and supplier issues. Organization and strategy issues, financial, logistic, political, market and regulatory issues were in next level of importance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It was shown that the majority of risks in pharmaceutical supply chain were internal risks due to processes, people and functions mismanagement which could be managed by suitable mitigation strategies.
authors.forename: Mona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jaberidoost
authors.forename: Shekoufeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nikfar
authors.forename: Akbar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abdollahiasl
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmaceutical administration, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1417614411, Iran. dinarvand@tums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Rassoul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dinarvand