Datex Blog

As the holiday season grows nearer and shoppers start making their lists and checking them twice, there are murmurs of increases in USPS rates.  Why, you ask?  It seems as if we are living in somewhat uncertain times right now when it comes to USPS postal rates,...

Gallup Poll Reveals American Distrust of Biopharma Drug Makers According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans reacted more negatively to questions about drug makers than more than 20 other industries that were included in the survey.  This included the federal...

“Fake” Meat Products and the Supply Chain As consumer tastes change, the $90B global meat market is encountering signs of significant disruption.  Today’s consumer wants more meat-free options, including veggie burgers, meat substitute burgers and mushroom burgers. ...

Hurricane Dorian May Cause Disruption to Florida Supply Chain With a potentially catastrophic hurricane looming, risk hovers over the Florida supply chain. In preparation for the storm, emergency declarations have already been issued for southern states including...

What Does “Patient Centric” Mean? Simply put, the term refers to the effort to put the patient in the center of efforts to safeguard, enhance and improve health.  It means that the patient is put first in a manner that provides transparency and continual engagement in...

 China Announces Retaliatory Tariffs on U.S. Goods Today, China revealed plans for imposing tariffs against $75 billion in U.S. goods, further escalating the trade war.  According to China’s Commerce Ministry, an official explained that an additional 5% or 10% in...

Watching the world news over the past two years, there seems to be a noticeable amount of upheaval and uncertainty in global trade.  From the Middle East to Hong Kong, Latin America and the European Union, countries are struggling for equilibrium, challenging each...

Advance Auto Parts Turns to Supplier Collaboration and Price Hikes to Mitigate Tariffs In preparation for the imposition of the list 3 tariffs covering $200 billion in Chinese exports, Advance Auto Parts has elected to collaborate with its suppliers to utilize on-hand...

Autonomous Trucks Carry Human Drivers in First Step Towards Fully Autonomous Trucking Texas-based startup, Kodiak Robotics has started hauling freight commercially using autonomous trucks.  Focused on “the middle mile”, the movement of freight from the on-ramp to the...

 New Plan for Safely Importing Foreign Drug Products Under Consideration The United States Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA announced the publication of a “safe importation action plan” on Wednesday, enabling specific medications that were...

Over the past decade or so, the pharmaceutical industry has changed dramatically.  As costs have risen, pharmaceutical manufacturers have scaled back operations and outsourced manufacturing, drug development, research, testing and laboratory functions as well as the...

UPS Announces 7-Day a Week Delivery Two months after FedEx announced that it was moving to a 7-day a week delivery schedule, UPS made a similar pronouncement.  As of January 1, 2020, UPS will be delivering packages 7 days a week and has arranged for its subsidiary,...

For many people, the term “e-commerce fulfillment” may bring thoughts of Amazon Prime or Amazon FBA. Online shopping, whether ordering from a vendor that specializes in drop shipping from Hong Kong or a 3PL fulfilling subscription boxes from a warehouse in Newark, is...

Uptick in Data Breaches:  Manufacturers Brave Cybersecurity Threats According to the 2019 Manufacturing and Distribution Report, half of the companies surveyed reported that they had experienced a cyberattack or data breach within the past twelve months, with 11...

Why Has Serialization Become Necessary in the Pharma/Life Sciences Industry? Helps to eradicate counterfeit prescription drugs and protect consumers Serialization increases the efficiency of the pharma supply chain Improves inventory visibility Enables collection of...

Bed Bath & Beyond in Free Fall  The pressures of modern retailing have taken their toll on major retailer Bed Bath & Beyond.  The industry giant reported that sales decreased 6.6% during the last quarter at stores open at least one year.  Q1 2019 also saw...

U.S. Trade War Travels to India Following the June 1st decision by President Trump to end trade concessions on $5.7 billion of goods shipped by India to the United States, India announced imposition of higher customs duties.  The goods included leather products,...

Apple and Nintendo Prep to Shift Production Out of China In preparation for the upcoming potential fourth round of Chinese tariffs, both Apple and Nintendo announced plans to move some production out of China to Southeast Asia.  The pending round of tariffs may...

IMO 2020:  Major Impact Coming to Global Shipping Industry Did you know that more than 90% of all trade conducted globally occurs on Earth’s oceans?  Currently, the 39,000 vessels that power global trade operate on sulfur-laden bunker fuel.  The emissions from this...

First, a Primer about Specialty Drugs In previous blogs, we have mentioned that specialty pharmaceuticals are on the rise.  Since 1990, the number of specialty drug approvals has increased dramatically.  What characteristics are used to define if a pharmaceutical...