The Design and Improvement of the CAR-T supply chain at Janssen, serving European Union patients.

Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T (CAR-T) Cell Therapy, is a promising emerging therapy developed to treat cancer patients using their own immune cells. The personalized and living nature of the starting material and the final product have raised concerns about the challenges and complexities in designing the adequate supply chain to develop and deliver this treatment. However, some pharmaceutical companies such as Janssen, Johnson & Johnson were able to mobilize their existing expertise in supply chain management and configure a supply chain allowing them to commercialize this product. This thesis thus aims to explore the current design of the CAR-T supply chain at Janssen that allowed it to serve European Union (EU) patients, and to identify opportunities of improving its performance. The first chapter is dedicated to offer a familiarization to the company of interest Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, and the CAR-T treatment. Afterwards, chapter 2 identifies the key performance indicators used to assess the CAR-T supply chain and goes through the different elements that shaped the current supply chain design. After revealing the current supply chain design, its performance with respect to the identified KPIs is evaluated. Based on the identified key pain points of the current supply chain, the remaining chapters focus on analyzing the effect of different improvements proposed in literature. In the light of these analyses and their results, this work concludes on possible opportunities of improving the current supply chain in scope.