  With almost 50% of annual commercial drug approvals being Personalised
Medicine (PM) and its huge potential to improve quality of life, this emerging
medical sector has received increased attention from the industry and medical
research, driven by health and care services, and us, the patients.
Notwithstanding the power of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) to
treat progressive illnesses and rare genetic conditions, their delivery on
large scale is still problematic. The biopharmaceutical companies are currently
struggling to meet timely delivery and, given high prices of up to $2 million
per patient, prove the cost-effectiveness of their ATMP. The fragility of ATMPs
combined with the impossibility for replacements due to the nature of the
treatment and the advanced stages of the patient's condition are some of the
bottlenecks added to a generally critical supply chain. As a consequence, ATMPs
are currently used in most cases only as a last resort. ATMPs are at the
intersection of multiple healthcare logistic networks and, due to their
novelty, research around their commercialisation is still in its infancy from
an operations research perspective. To accelerate technology adoption in this
domain, we characterize pertinent practical challenges in a PM supply chain and
then capture them in a holistic mathematical model ready for optimisation. The
identified challenges and derived model will be contrasted with literature of
related supply chains in terms of model formulations and suitable optimisation
methods. Finally, needed technological advancements are discussed to pave the
way to affordable commercialisation of PM.
