Pharmaceutical industry is a wide spread complex industry which plays significant role in ensuring human health care. Unlike other industries where stereotype supply chain management is undertaken, pharmaceutical industry requires a challenging and complex supply chain management. There are different phases in the pharma industry from formulating the drugs to the production of the final chemical compounds. Modern world pharmaceutical industry along with technological advancements appears to differ from traditional pharma industry. Due to complex supply chain formation in pharma industries, the occurrence of risk is relatively high when compared with other industries. Even though the pharmaceutical supply chains are associated with several risks of varying severities, this area is not adequately studied and analysed by researchers in the field. In this paper, an analysis on the supply chain phases, risks involved in various levels of the pharmaceutical supply chain, effects of prioritizing the risks and steps in mitigating the risks are presented. © 2016, International Journal of Pharmacy and Technology. All rights reserved.