Year: 2015-16

Company: BioMarin

Liaison(s): Steve Clarke

BioMarin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ BMRN),
founded in 1997 in Novato, CA is a world leader in
providing first-in-class or best-in-class therapeutics
to an array of patients suffering from rare diseases.
It has a market capitalization of $12.6 billion, as of
March 22nd 2016, and reported a total revenue of
$890 million for fiscal year 2015. The firm’s pipeline
is composed of five products already in the market,
and ten candidates at different stages of product
development. BioMarin’s excellence in performance has
caused an exponential growth in demand for its drugs.
The Supply Chain Planning group at BioMarin is
responsible for creating a 5-year long range production
plan for its commercial and clinical drug substance
products. This plan is critical to key decisions, such
as budgets and long range capacity requirements.
By evaluating multiple scenarios (e.g. varying target
inventory levels, regulatory approval dates, yield
changes, etc.) senior management gain substantial
insights. However, the process of generating alternative
scenarios and evaluating their cost implications is
very cumbersome. Thus, in order to streamline these
processes, BioMarin is seeking a software solution
to enable rapid scenario generation and subsequent
supply chain optimization.
The BioMarin TMP team analyzed software capable
of supply chain optimization and scenario planning to
determine which would be most suitable for BioMarin’s
needs in the face of projected growth. The team
compiled a long list of vendors which was narrowed
further based on increasingly stringent adherence
to stakeholder requirements. The team created a
Request for Information (RFI) which was sent to
the top 8 vendors. Six of these vendors responded
and of these, based on RFI evaluation, five were
offered the opportunity to complete a demonstration
of their software. The team created a scoring sheet
that stakeholders used to quantitatively evaluate the
vendors during these demos. Final steps will include
qualitatively describing the differences between the
software, consulting with the business department of
BioMarin to assign financial values to these differences,
and using the results of the quantitative, qualitative,
and financial analyses to assist BioMarin’s decision-
making process