Gregg Gorniak, vice president of manufacturer operations and data services and secure supply chain lead at Cencora, argues that DSCSA compliance investments only create value when trading partners agree on what “value” actually means.
Gorniak spoke with Pharmaceutical Commerce ahead of his session at HDA’s 2026 Traceability Seminar, titled “Transforming DSCSA Compliance Into Strategic Growth and Innovation.”
He draws on experience from both the manufacturer and wholesaler sides of the law to explain where partners find common ground on turning compliance into shared value.
His interview with Pharmaceutical Commerce, now in its third installment, lays out in practical terms what genuine alignment between supply chain partners looks like.
Gorniak notes that reaching that alignment is harder than it sounds, requiring parties to reconcile competing priorities and different definitions of operational success.
DSCSA’s aggregation requirements stop at the each, case and pallet level, but some operations rely on an additional bundled or inner-pack tier to accommodate automation that cannot process individual units.
When that bundle is serialized and shared through EPCIS, Gorniak explains, it can turn a job requiring a dozen or more scans into just two, a significant operational improvement.
That reduction in scanning steps adds up to substantial labor savings when applied at the volume a major pharmaceutical wholesaler routinely processes.
However, because bundling falls outside the law’s requirements, its adoption depends entirely on whether the economics make sense for every party involved, not just the one capturing the efficiency gain.
That distinction is central to Gorniak’s broader argument: compliance-driven investments must deliver tangible returns across the partnership, or enthusiasm for going beyond the legal minimum will quickly evaporate.
The pharmaceutical supply chain has faced mounting pressure to move beyond mere regulatory tick-box exercises and find ways to turn traceability infrastructure into genuine business assets.
Serialization data, when properly shared and interpreted, can support recall management, inventory optimization, and demand forecasting, giving wholesalers and manufacturers a richer operational picture than compliance alone would require.
Gorniak’s position at Cencora places him at the intersection of those conversations, giving him visibility into how both sides of a trading relationship weigh the costs and benefits of going further than the law demands.
His session at HDA’s 2026 Traceability Seminar is expected to provide a framework for supply chain stakeholders looking to move from compliance as a cost centre toward compliance as a platform for strategic growth and innovation.