Enabling collaborative resource sharing in the pharmaceutical industry during disruption: an exploratory assessment

The paper examines the promotional factors of collaborative resource sharing (CRS) in the pharmaceutical industry during disruption. The pharmaceutical industry remains the backbone of the health sector as it supports activities of hospitals and care-homes in terms of drug manufacturing and production of health care facilities. Based on the significance of this industry, the need to promote faster recovery strategies such as CRS to help pharmaceutical industry recover quickly during disruption like COVID-19 is paramount. The paper adopts exploratory analysis and descriptive methodologies to delineate responses garnered from sampled professionals, practitioners, and experts in the pharmaceutical industry. The paper finds that increased efficiency, risk reduction, and sharing of transient knowledge, among others are general factors that promote the application of CRS strategy in disruption. Also, the paper confirms that trust, commitment, incentives, and continuous innovation are promotional factors of CRS in the pharmaceutical industry in both normal and disruptive periods. It concludes that promotional factors of collaborative resources sharing are multifaceted, and those factors that are instrumental to reducing the impact of disruption are more conventional than those factors to consider during normalcy. The paper recommends continuous innovation and creation of intermediating elements for successful implementation of CRS in the pharmaceutical industry.