Pharma and Medical Commodities Manager
Job Description
The IRC launched an emergency response in oPt in 2023, responding to the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza. Prior to October 7th, in June 2023, we conducted a scoping mission to oPt, in West Bank, and subsequently developed a strategic plan to initiate programming in West Bank. Since then, and in the context of catastrophic fighting and renewed violence, the IRC has initiated an emergency response in Gaza and developed a response plan with partners which includes Gaza and West Bank. Implementing a diverse, integrated program of health, protection, cash and scaling up in WASH and nutrition, these programs prioritize local partnerships with both public institutions and civil society, and span emergency, humanitarian, recovery, and development modalities, while serving vulnerable Palestinians in oPt.
Job overview/summary:
The Pharmaceutical and Medical Commodities Manager is responsible for the end-to-end supply chain process for pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) items, non-food items (NFI), and emergency pre-positioned stock. Scope includes strategic sourcing, product selection, inventory management and reporting, and transport.
The role establishes and maintains helpful partnerships with suppliers and other organizations, develops and implements critical initiatives within the pharmaceuticals and medical equipment and indirect categories stated above. A good proportion of the total category spend, and suppliers may not be handled directly; however, the PMCM must consider the total spend within the strategy and provide support and oversight.
S/he will support implementing partners as well as IRC’s oPt-based implementation teams to apply pharma management best practices. This position will be supervised by the Supply Chain Coordinator and will work with the Health Coordinator, health partners, programs teams and operational support teams.
Key responsibilities:
Pharmaceutical Supply chain:
• In collaboration with the health team, create forecasts and supply planning for pharmaceutical supply for all health projects by project start date.
• Work with requesters to develop comprehensive purchase specification.
• Lead the bidding process, including Request for quotation process, Request for proposal process, Tender evaluation and facilitating procurement committee functioning.
• Lead on the procurement of additional categories as well, based on the need of the country program.
• Conduct procurement due diligence, including ATC check, supplier site visits, supplier background checks and implement any other fraud prevention methods.
• Implement all IRC procurement Standard Operating Procedures to ensure compliance to IRC and donors procurement policies.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices:
• Serve as subject matter specialist for drug procurement and medical devices and equipment and service providers related to pharmaceutical regulations and serve as a focal point for donors’ requirements.
• Pharmaceutical management processes, such as supplier prequalification, demand planning and quantification, quality assurance and control, cold chain storage, and distribution.
• Provide technical advice and guidance to Country Program Supply Chain staff on donor compliance, importation, and sourcing from global suppliers.
Pharmaceuticals and Supplies Management:
• Monitors the availability of medical products to avoid stock-outs and financial losses generated by expired items; collaborates with the health team to define stock security levels.
• Leads in country program quantification, ensures drug consumption data is collected at health facilities, aggregated, analyzed and used for forecasting needs of the program.
• Participates in defining strategies for supply, management, distribution and use of medical products in line with IRC’s recommendations and policies; under the supervision of the Supply Chain Coordinator and in collaboration with Health Coordinator, support development/use of new pharmaceutical stock management systems and software.
• Participates in implementing the pharmaceutical supply chain standard operating procedures.
• Applies Good Distribution Practices (GDPs) for pharmaceutical products at storage level, and Good Dispensing Practices in end user units. These include:
• Manages medical stock data and indicators, analyzes and interprets performance to support the necessary programmatic decisions or course corrections in collaboration with Health and Supply Chain staff (consumption, stock levels, stock-outs, pre-stock-outs, over-stocking, donations, expired products, disposal, etc.).
• Regularly visits the warehouse to conduct audits and follow up on recommendations on GDPs: the layout of the warehouse, storage, product arrangement, reception, distribution and transport.
Technical Support and Monitoring for Partner Implemented Activities:
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with pharmacy focal points in each health partner organization.
• Support IRC partners and supported facilities to comply with national and international standards (including drug stock management guidelines, essential drug list, and standard equipment).
• Manage monitoring and analysis of partner medical commodity data including consumption rates, rational use, stock outs, and planning for re-orders.
• Provide technical assistance and lead capacity building efforts to strengthen partners’ abilities to adhere to Good Distribution Practices and Good Dispensing Practices in the supported pharmacies.
• Work in coordination and collaboration with partners’ M&E departments to provide support to their internal capacity and practices for monitoring pharmaceutical management.
Key working relationships:
Position Directly Reports to: Supply Chain Coordinator
Technical Referent: Health Coordinator, Pharmaceutical Quality Assurance / HU Pharma Advisors
Other Internal Contacts: Programs and Operations Teams.
Other External Contacts: IRC’s local partner organizations, other local INGO and NGOs
Job requirements:
• Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy
• At least 4 years’ experience working with local or international NGOs in related capacity.
• Demonstrated experience with medical procurement, warehousing, supply chain and pharmaceutical management.
• Strong skills and knowledge of health information systems with ability to analyze and interpret health data.
• Ability to plan, prioritize, coordinate and manage human resources.
• Previous experience facilitating training and participating in capacity building initiatives with staff.
• Excellent analytical and written skills.
• Demonstrated strong interpersonal and intercultural communication with success working both within a team and independently.
• Excellent working knowledge of computer software packages (MS Word, Excel, Outlook, etc).
• English and Arabic fluency required (oral and written).
• Excellent organizational and time management skills with ability to manage competing priorities and deadlines.
• Ability to be flexible, adaptable, creative, and innovative in a challenging and fast-moving multicultural environment.
Qualifications
Added 24 days ago
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Updated 2 hours ago
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Source:
rescue.org
