12 Questions with Alex Guillen
As Global SME of Life Science and Pharma at Tive, Alex Guillen leads sales and business development within the company's rapid-growth life sciences division. Previously, Guillen served as a Board Member and leader of Corporate Strategy at SWITRACE SA, a developer of temperature and humidity loggers for the pharma and biotech industries. Guillen’s extensive experience also includes serving as Global Cold Chain Director of Fisher Clinical Services, CEO of Escort Cold Chain Solutions SA, and Director for Commercial Operations for Novartis Vaccines.
What are the main responsibilities of your current role? Tive provides visibility into real-time shipment location and conditions. As Global SME, I ensure that we remain compliant while also helping the global sales team to understand the customer’s needs. We also develop tailor-made solutions in the pharma space, covering manufacturers, biotech companies including cell and gene therapies, pharma commercial shipments, and clinical trials.
What is your background prior to this role and how did it prepare you for the work you do now? I have been in sales and marketing most of my career and entered life sciences in 2005 as Director of Commercial Operations for Chiron Vaccines and Diagnostics, which later became Novartis. There, I learned about the dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry, and noticed there were only a few companies providing logistics temperature monitoring. I launched a temperature monitoring company, and later consulted on temperature control packaging. I then worked as Global Cold Chain Director for the Bioservices division of Thermo Fisher, including clinical trials. In 2021, I joined Tive to develop their Life Science and Pharma vertical. I had never heard of Tive in logistics temperature monitoring, and it’s incredible to see where we are now.
What motivates you about working in pharma? Pharma logistics is complex and challenging. At Novartis, I learned of the complexity in commercial operations and the different regulations in every country, but also supply chain complexity. With the development of medicines and therapies, these challenges become greater – and managing the supply chain may determine their success. If supply chains aren’t built to support new therapies, medicines won’t get to patients – and manufacturers can’t scale production. This motivates me: the impact I can have building supply chains for new therapies because improving this supply chain will allow new medicines to reach more patients.
What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the industry right now? Supply chain disruptions. During COVID, the public saw what disruptions looked like when basic medical supplies became unavailable. Disruptions used to be the exception, but they are now the norm. Geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather conditions, and trade instability are a few causes. Pharma has a robust supply chain which took decades to build. But this industry cannot yet adjust quickly to sudden changes. Given current global issues, pharma needs to learn how to adapt faster to change and disruptions.
What excites you most about current industry trends? The rapid development of personalised medicine. While a handful were approved in 2023, over 1,000 will happen in 2025. We are close to finding a cure for the most terrible diseases, yet, the management of personalised medicine is extremely challenging because while tailoring medical interventions to an individual person, cells need to be maintained at ultra-low temperatures, and we need to securely trace cells and medicine to the patient. I am excited to see new cooperation to overcome the limits of technology, perhaps by tailoring it to suit the industry’s needs.
What has changed most about the industry since the start of your career? I have seen two major changes in the pharma industry, the first being the level of cooperation. This was emphasised during COVID. Pharmaceutical companies had to unite to accelerate vaccine development, and service providers – including specialty logistics, shipment monitoring, and temperature-controlled packaging companies – had to closely coordinate to deliver vaccines.
The second change is the adoption of new technologies. This is critical, yet, improvements are slow compared to other industries. This will likely be driven via tech adoption by freight forwarders, including real-time visibility, data analysis to allow release of drugs, visibility and predictability platforms integrations, and using AI to mitigate deviations – or even prevent them.
What do you think pharma will look like in 15 years? 50 years? It will be completely different. We will move away from pharmaceutical to biotech products – think fewer chemicals and more biological products – and the biosimilars industry will boom with the advancement of manufacturing capabilities in countries like China, India, and APAC.
With personalised medicine, manufacturing will occur closer to patients, reducing the risk of mishandling and damage, improving traceability, and reducing the cost of transportation.
In 50 years? The industry will focus on disease prevention, and if pharma doesn’t expand into preventive science, other healthcare industries will.
What advice do you have for your pharma industry peers? AI will accelerate development, and IoT technologies plus AI will save shipments and provide predictability. My advice is to learn and embrace new technologies. We should not rush into developing too quickly, commercialising too fast, or delivering too soon. Embrace technology, but be cautious about speed, because consequences could be irreversible.
How is the pharma industry approaching sustainability within its supply chains, and how do you see this improving? This industry is among the leading carbon-dioxide generating industries because of packaging materials and air shipping. New regulations are forcing the industry to reduce single-use, temperature-controlled packaging, but we need to evaluate ways to cleanly manage all aspects of cold chain shipments. Logistics decision makers must look closely at emissions, logistics managers can influence freight forwarders and carriers to take sustainable routes, and supply chain managers can make sustainable choices. Does that mean all pharmaceutical companies will leap into sustainable transportation? I don’t know, but I am witnessing some companies leading the way.
What are your recommendations to pharma companies looking to mitigate security risks within their global supply chains? Embrace technology. Don’t wait until shipments get lost, stolen, or damaged. The sooner you understand what’s possible – and what’s coming – the lower your risk of losses or waste. Technology provides predictability and enables you to be proactive. This is about using the fastest and smartest ways to analyse data to optimise processes.
What positive changes have you seen within the pharma logistics space since the COVID-19 pandemic? COVID-19 forced cooperation across the industry. Competitors had to work together to ensure the supply chain – and the vaccine cold chain – were not disrupted. It was not perfect, and a lot of vaccines got wasted, but the effort to make it happen established a unique way of working together that has remained. COVID made many companies realise the danger of relying on only a few countries for critical medicine components. Many companies divested their dependence to rely on 1+ country.
What are your hobbies? What do you do in your free time? My wife and I enjoy spending time with our grandchildren. I also teach a traditional form of karate. 30 years ago, I opened a karate school in southern Switzerland where we teach three times a week; I teach when not travelling.
Connect with Alex Guillen on LinkedIn.
