From Uncertainty to Resilience | Cencora

By Erik Little, SVP - Replenishment Operations Strategy and Solutions

Healthcare providers face an uncomfortable truth every day: the supply chain that connects a manufacturer to a patient is far more fragile than most people realize. Demand shifts without warning. Shortages emerge with little notice. When the system fails, it isn't a spreadsheet that absorbs the impact - it's a patient waiting for a therapy they can't access.

The Problem Is Bigger Than Stock Levels

When most people think about pharmaceutical supply chain challenges, they think about whether a drug is in stock or not. But drug availability and accessibility are two very different things. A product can be technically available in the network but will do little good if it can't be administered to the right patient at the right time.

The forces driving this gap are significant and growing, with an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 individual national drug codes in some state of shortage at any given time. Manufacturing disruptions, geopolitical instability, regulatory changes and payer dynamics all compound the challenge, creating a supply environment where even the best-prepared organizations can be caught off guard. Traditional demand planning, focused primarily on forecasting volume, was never designed to navigate this level of complexity - but AI is changing that.

Seeing Around Corners

AI expands that capability by connecting information across manufacturers, suppliers, products and distribution pathways. It can detect patterns and early warning signals at a scale and speed that would be difficult for any planning team to achieve manually. This broader view enables organizations to recognize potential issues before they surface as disruptions, and long before they become shortages.

Across its U.S. network, Cencora manages approximately 60,000 products in 32 distribution centers and monitors nearly 800,000 unique demand patterns each day. AI helps planners synthesize historical demand, current market signals and network activity so they can identify potential changes before those changes affect providers and patients.

Resilience Is Built on Better Decisions

Supply chain resilience isn't just a matter of having more inventory or more distribution centers - it's a matter of making better, faster decisions, with the confidence to act on them. That confidence comes from the visibility of knowing what is happening in the network, why it's happening and what to do next.
This is the principle behind Cencora's internal AI-enabled demand intelligence platform, SynchRO. It is used by Cencora teams to improve demand visibility and decision-making. Rather than producing only a forecast, SynchRO helps operators understand what demand is changing, why it may be changing and what actions could be considered. The platform can surface anomalies, recommend responses and help teams simulate alternatives before committing to a course of action.

These recommendations accelerate analysis, but people remain accountable for the final decision. Experienced planners add operational context, clinical awareness, customer knowledge and judgment that an algorithm cannot supply on its own.

Trust Is the Foundation

Embedding AI into the highly regulated pharmaceutical supply chain requires more than good technology. Sufficient governance, transparency and a disciplined commitment to responsible use are equally critical to ensure that AI models have consistently reliable data, appropriate oversight and ongoing evaluation as supply conditions evolve.

Providers want and need distribution partners that pair advanced capabilities with practical human experience, as well as transparency into how AI is applied and accountability for the decisions that follow. Cencora's AI work is governed by a responsible AI framework built specifically for the regulated healthcare environment. In this industry, trust is table stakes. And trust grows through experience - in this case, through practical, demonstrable examples of AI improving forecast accuracy, supporting medication availability and helping teams respond more quickly when conditions change.

The Road Ahead

The greatest long-term opportunity is to apply AI across connected, end-to-end workflows rather than isolated tasks. That includes demand forecasting, inventory planning, issue resolution and service improvement, with closer collaboration between providers and distributors.

Cencora remains committed to helping build a supply chain that's more responsive, predictable and resilient, helping providers maintain continuity of care and making it easier for patients to get the therapies they need. AI is already helping us do that, and we're only scratching the surface.