We started the day at Medochemie, a pharmaceutical company with its headquarters located in Limassol, Cyprus. Medochemie focuses on producing and shipping generic drugs internationally.

The most valuable insight I gained today was about the importance of quality assurance in the pharmaceutical industry. Along with all other pharmaceutical companies, Medochemie must comply with good manufacturing practices, also known as GMPs. These include proper methods, facilities, and personnel. Even packaging material must be tested! Medochemie representative, Maia Plastira, told us that since GMPs are constantly changing so are the quality assurance tests. Personnel training typically occurs every 16 months, but when something in the GMPs is changed retraining must happen. This a key factor in quality assurance since most problems are related to human error.

One of Medochemie’s key missions is its commitment to providing affordable drugs to customers. Although they stressed this multiple times in their presentation, I am still unsure how they can ensure that their prices remain affordable to the end customer. Because Medochemie sells its products to distributors, they do not have total control of the end price. Distributors can increase prices to make a larger profit, hurting patients’ pockets, despite the supplier’s (Medochemie) intentions. Another thing that I was surprised to hear was the lack of technology in Medochemie’s supply chain management strategies. Instead of using machine learning or statistical models for forecasting, Medochemie uses a group of experienced individuals to evaluate what inventory should be at a given point in time. One thing I was very impressed with, though, was Mediochemie’s organization. Their warehouse (which smelled like Home Depot) was pristine. The drugs were organized into sections on special, moving technology. This allowed them to be accessed and moved more efficiently, making the supply chain quicker.

Our next stop of the day was Colombia Ship Management (CSM). As the 5th largest global ship management company, CSM manages over 400 vessels with 16,000 employees. They specialize in providing “customized solutions for customers” which, by looking at their data, creates longer-lasting customer relationships. CSM believes that personnel is the most valuable asset of a company, so they try to protect this. For example, the Ukraine-Russia War caused many of their Ukrainian employees to be displaced, so they provided temporary housing for them and their families. On the other hand, many of their customers did not want Russian captains piloting their vessels. This made me wonder what CSM’s response to this was. In America, we have laws that prevent workplace discrimination based on race or ethnicity. I believe the situation CSM described would be considered discriminatory against Russian crew members. I am curious if Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices are less talked about in Cypriot/European companies and if this will change in the near future.