The Trading & Parallel Imports Manager is responsible for leading the sourcing strategy and commercial performance of all parallel‑imported pharmaceutical products in the Irish market within the Supply Chain and Retail division. This role oversees supplier relationships across the EEA, ensures regulatory compliance, delivers best in class procurement, and secures a competitive product portfolio that supports margin growth and delivers a market leading offer to positions Uniphar as supplier of choice within the Irish market.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
- Develop and execute the company’s parallel import procurement strategy across all medicinal categories.
- Identify new sourcing and export markets, supply corridors, and product opportunities to strengthen competitiveness.
Supplier & Market Management
- Build and manage strong relationships with internal partners, parallel distributors, wholesalers, and EU market partners.
- Negotiate commercial terms, pricing, rebates, and long‑term supply agreements.
- Monitor EU market conditions, currency impacts, and regulatory changes affecting PI availability and pricing.
Operational Excellence
- Oversee demand forecasting, stock planning, and supply continuity for PI products and export opportunities
- Maintain up‑to‑date knowledge of EMA, HPRA/MHRA, and EU parallel trade regulations.
- Ensure all procurement activities adhere to legal frameworks, pharmacovigilance obligations, and internal governance.
Team Leadership
- Manage and develop a Junior Buyer, fostering expertise in PI sourcing and negotiation.
- Set KPIs, monitor performance, and drive continuous improvement.
- Working closely with the Retail Buying team to identify opportunities to close the gap on external supplier spend.
- Promote cross‑functional collaboration with Allphar, Wholesale & Retail Commercial, Finance, QA, and Logistics teams.
- Working closely with the bModesto team to enhance margin opportunities within Uniphar PLC.
Commercial & Financial Impact
- Reduce Cost of Goods and Improve Margins
- The primary commercial driver is to procure the same licensed medicines at lower prices from other EEA markets.
- Increase Product Availability and Supply Resilience
- Diversify the supply base beyond local manufacturers.
- Reduce dependency on single‑country supply
- Mitigate shortages by sourcing from multiple EU markets
Strengthen Market Competitiveness
- Deliver a proposition that wins in a market feeling the strains of reference pricing, competitive tendering and high penetration by short line wholesalers through the most competitive pricing, wider product ranges, faster response to market shifts
- Ensure Full Regulatory Compliance and Quality Assurance
- Ensuring all products meet GDP/GMP, repackaging, and relabelling standards
- Maintaining batch traceability and pharmacovigilance compliance
- Aligning with EMA and national authority requirements
Build Strategic Supplier Relationships Across the EEA
- Long‑term partnerships with trusted PI distributors, with internal PI businesses given preference.
- Securing priority access to high‑value SKUs
- Negotiating favourable terms, rebates, and volume commitments
- Attend international trade shows to foster new relationships where appropriate
Skills & Experience Required
- Extensive experience in pharmaceutical procurement, ideally with direct exposure to parallel imports.
- Strong understanding of EU pharmaceutical regulations, supply chains, and market dynamics.
- Proven negotiation skills and experience managing complex supplier networks.
- Commercially sharp with strong analytical and financial acumen.
- Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder‑management abilities.
- Ability to operate in a fast‑moving, highly regulated environment.
- Preferred Qualifications
- Degree in Pharmacy, Life Sciences, Business, Supply Chain, or related field.
- Experience working with EU wholesalers, MA holders, or PI distributors.
Uniphar – Who we are
With a workforce of more than 3000 employees spread across Ireland, United Kingdom, Mainland Europe, MENA, and the USA, Uniphar is a trusted global partner to pharma and MedTech manufacturers, working to improve patient access to medicines around the world. Uniphar provides outsourced and specialised services to its clients, leveraging the strong relationships with 200+ of the world’s best known pharmaco-medical manufacturers across multiple geographies, enabled by our cutting-edge digital technology and our highly expert teams. Uniphar is organised into three key divisions: Supply Chain Retail & On Demand, Uniphar Med Tech and Uniphar Pharma.
Supply Chain & Retail
Supply Chain Services provides both pre-wholesale and wholesale distribution of pharmaceutical, healthcare and animal health products to pharmacies and hospital nationwide. The business supports a diverse customer base through the provision of strong service levels coupled with innovative commercial initiatives. In addition, the business provides services and supports that help independent community pharmacy to compete more effectively in an increasingly difficult environment and runs a network of Uniphar-owned pharmacies under the Life, Allcare, McCauleys and Hickeys symbol brands.
Skills Required
- Extensive experience in pharmaceutical procurement, ideally with direct exposure to parallel imports
- Strong understanding of EU pharmaceutical regulations, supply chains, and market dynamics (EMA, HPRA/MHRA, EU parallel trade rules)
- Proven negotiation skills and experience managing complex supplier networks and long‑term supply agreements
- Commercial acumen with strong analytical and financial skills to reduce COGS and improve margins
- Knowledge of GDP/GMP, repackaging and relabelling standards, batch traceability and pharmacovigilance compliance
- Leadership experience, ability to manage and develop at least one direct report (Junior Buyer)
- Excellent communication and stakeholder‑management abilities; ability to work cross‑functionally
- Degree in Pharmacy, Life Sciences, Business, Supply Chain, or related field
- Experience working with EU wholesalers, marketing authorization holders (MA holders), or PI distributors
What We Do
Uniphar is a diversified healthcare services organisation with activities in Ireland, UK, Europe, the USA and APAC
