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From Molecule to Market: Securing Pharma’s Supply Chain with PIAM

  • Soloinsight Inc.
  • May 26, 2022
  • 5 min read

Updated: May 26


From Molecule to Market: Securing Pharma’s Supply Chain with PIAM

A Pill Isn’t Just a Product. It’s a Journey Through Thousands of Doors.


From the moment a pharmaceutical compound is conceived in an R&D lab, it embarks on a journey—across facilities, continents, and regulatory landscapes. It moves through formulation sites, packaging lines, cold storage warehouses, and distribution centers before reaching the hands of a patient.


But here’s the truth most companies overlook: Every handoff in that journey is a potential breach point.


In an industry defined by precision, purity, and trust, the physical identity of every person who touches the product must be accounted for. And yet, many pharma supply chains still rely on outdated access systems, fragmented identity logs, and temporary badges handed out with paper sign-in sheets.


One Fortune 500 pharmaceutical manufacturer decided enough was enough.

They didn’t just want to move faster. They wanted to move intelligently.


They partnered with Soloinsight’s CloudGate PIAM platform to secure the human side of the supply chain—transforming identity from a checkbox into a strategic pillar. Because in modern pharma, the supply chain doesn’t end at the loading dock. It begins at the door.


The Hidden Threat: Human Access Across Critical Nodes


In pharma, supply chain integrity doesn’t just depend on refrigeration and routing. It depends on who has access, when, where, and why.


  • A packaging technician enters a controlled environment 12 hours after their shift.

  • A contractor installs a machine but keeps their badge long after the work ends.

  • A pallet handler enters the wrong storage room during a vaccine production cycle.


These are not hypotheticals. These are everyday events in facilities relying on trust and routine instead of dynamic verification.


CloudGate turned that model upside down.


It asked: What if every identity in your supply chain knew its boundaries—and enforced

them in real time?


Step 1: Transform Every Door Into a Smart Checkpoint


With CloudGate PIAM, every loading bay, cleanroom entrance, and warehouse door became intelligent. Each interaction wasn’t just an open or closed status—it became a verified transaction, recorded, audited, and enforced through logic.


  • Access granted based on role, location, and time window

  • Credentials revoked immediately after expiration or task completion

  • Real-time logging for audits, compliance, and internal QA


In one flagship formulation site, CloudGate replaced a keycard system that had allowed badge sharing for years. The result?


  • Unauthorized entry attempts dropped by 91%

  • Credential-related production delays were eliminated

  • Audit prep time went from days to minutes


Because when every access event becomes data, compliance stops being a reaction—and becomes assurance.


Step 2: Issue Credentials That Evolve with the Supply Chain


In traditional systems, identity is static. Someone is approved once, and that approval may remain forever—even when their role, training, or relevance changes.

CloudGate changed that by issuing wallet-based, dynamic credentials tied to live identity profiles.


  • Shipping supervisors’ access adjusts based on inventory zones under their jurisdiction

  • External carriers receive time-sensitive access windows with geo-fencing

  • Facility managers can instantly revoke a badge if a deviation report is triggered


Now, your badge doesn’t just identify you. It reflects your training, status, and permissions in real time.


Step 3: Biometric Verification for Mission-Critical Environments


Where temperature is critical, where materials are volatile, where regulatory oversight is heavy—there is no room for error.


CloudGate’s TRA Face ID was deployed across high-risk supply chain nodes:


  • Cold storage rooms storing high-value vaccines

  • Secondary packaging areas with serialized track-and-trace devices

  • Distribution zones with DEA-scheduled inventory


The biometric system ensured:


  • Zero tailgating, with automatic denial on group entries

  • Hands-free access, maintaining GMP cleanliness

  • Immutable logs, linking every access event to a verified individual


Security became non-negotiable, yet completely seamless.


Step 4: Contractors That Don’t Slip Through the Cracks


The pharma supply chain is powered by hundreds of vendors—logistics partners, HVAC techs, calibration specialists, cleaning crews, security guards.


Previously, contractor access looked like:


  • Paperwork filled out on arrival

  • Manual vetting at the front desk

  • Badges issued for days, sometimes weeks, with no real control


CloudGate replaced all of this with its Contractor Compliance Automation Module:


  • Contractors self-enroll days before arrival

  • Safety certifications and NDA documents validated digitally

  • Access issued via mobile credentials, time-boxed and role-specific


At one production campus, this system reduced unauthorized contractor access by 98% and shortened onboarding from 72 hours to under 12.


Now, compliance isn’t delayed. It’s designed in.


Step 5: Real-Time Chain of Custody Across Facilities


For pharma, proving chain of custody is not a luxury—it’s law.


CloudGate gave the company:


  • Live dashboards showing personnel movement across manufacturing and logistics

  • Real-time alerts for unauthorized zone entries or credential anomalies

  • Facility-level analytics to detect suspicious patterns before incidents occur


With this system, the company traced:


  • Every technician who accessed a quarantined compound

  • Every handler who entered a serialized packaging line

  • Every shift during which a regulatory deviation was discovered


It became a new era: proactive, transparent access management across the entire production lifecycle.


Step 6: Automate for Regulatory Intelligence


When the FDA, EMA, or DEA shows up, the last thing you want is a scramble.

CloudGate made audits effortless by:


  • Exporting access logs in agency-ready formats

  • Generating pre-built reports aligned with cGMP, GxP, and 21 CFR Part 11

  • Offering immutable audit trails for each entry, contractor, and facility zone


In one global compliance event, a surprise inspection was completed in half the expected time—with CloudGate logs used to satisfy six separate documentation requests.


For the first time, compliance teams could focus on strategy—not spreadsheets.


Step 7: Future-Proofing the Pharma Pipeline


This isn’t just about today. It’s about tomorrow.


CloudGate is evolving into:


  • AI-powered predictive access engines that detect anomalies before they happen

  • Integration with blockchain for end-to-end credential validation across partner ecosystems

  • Digital twin environments for simulating supply chain disruptions—physically and logically

  • Space for quantum-safe identity standards, as pharma data grows even more valuable


This pharmaceutical company didn’t just build a better access system.


They redefined how identity, security, and compliance fuel the entire product journey—from molecule to market.


Results that Changed the Culture


Within six months of deployment:


  • Access violations dropped by 94%

  • Credential delays were eliminated across supply nodes

  • Contractor badge misuse fell to zero

  • Audit readiness was maintained at 100% compliance across five global facilities


And perhaps the most powerful result?


Employees and partners didn’t feel monitored.They felt trusted—with intelligence.


Conclusion: The Real Supply Chain Is Human


PIAM Secures Pharma’s Supply Chain


Steve Jobs once said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.” In pharma, the customer experience begins long before the patient swallows a pill.


It begins with the team in the cleanroom. The driver at the dock. The inspector in the lab.


Soloinsight’s CloudGate PIAM platform doesn’t just secure doors. It secures decisions, systems, and people—the invisible human supply chain behind every cure. PIAM Secures Pharma’s Supply Chain and in doing so, it ensures that every dose shipped is built on trust you can prove.


Contact Soloinsight for a Personalized Demo


Want to fortify your pharmaceutical supply chain from the inside out?

Contact Soloinsight today to schedule a personalized demo of the CloudGate PIAM platform. Discover how dynamic identity, biometric assurance, and real-time compliance can protect your pipeline—and power your path to market.




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