Posts Tagged ‘2D Barcodes’

Bottle ID photo courtesy of Optel Vision

One of the biggest challenges for companies in the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain when the California pedigree law becomes operational after December 31, 2014 will be the need to maximize the efficiency of dealing with serial numbers on each drug package.  One way to do that is to maximize the use of “inference” where the case serial number is read and the unit package-level serial numbers are “inferred” from the unit-to-case aggregation information supplied by the upstream trading partner (See my essays “Inference in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain” and “Will The Pharma Supply Chain Be Able To Use Inference? Maybe Not!”).

But the problem with the use of inference is that you need to be able to rely on the accuracy of the aggregation information that your supplier provides to you.  There is an element of trust in that—not just that you trust your supplier to be truthful with you but that you trust that your supplier’s case packing processes and systems will always accurately capture and document the unit-to-case hierarchy—or “aggregation”.  You must be able to trust that the aggregation information your supplier provides to you will be 100% accurate.  That’s a lot of trust. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been almost two years since I published “RFID is DEAD…at Unit-Level in Pharma” and we are approaching a pivotal decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that will determine whether or not RFID will be acceptable for identifying drugs in the U.S. supply chain.  Last Thursday was the scheduled final closing of the recent request for comment issued by the FDA formally known as “Bar Code Technologies for Drugs and Biological Products; Retrospective Review Under Executive Order 13563; Request for Comments, 76 Fed. Reg. 66,235” (Oct. 26, 2011) [Docket No. FDA-2011-N-0719].

The closing of this request for comment (RFC) means that it is now time for the FDA to figure out what they might do with the original questions.  That is, should they change the requirement for all packages of prescription drugs and many over-the-counter (OTC) drugs in the U.S. to contain the National Drug Code (NDC) encoded into a linear barcode?  And if so, what should they replace it with?  The RFC doesn’t give any hints about how far they might go and simply asks a series of questions of the industry and interested parties, letting the respondents propose whatever they think the agency should do.

I have spent my Sunday afternoon reading (OK, in some instances, skimming) through all of the responses.  They are available for anyone to read (or skim) at http://www.regulations.gov (search for FDA-2011-N-0719).  Considering that the input received from this RFC may influence the FDA’s decision about what to replace the linear barcode requirement with, I think Read the rest of this entry »

Linear barcodes have served us well for almost half a century, but NOW is the time to move on to something else in the global pharmaceutical supply chain.  I think most people already agree with that but I’m not sure everyone fully appreciates exactly why that is.  It’s important to fully understand the reason why so that your resolution to move away from linear barcodes is strong and you won’t drag your feet or look back.  So let me show you.

                      SERIALIZATION
THE DAWN OF ^ CIVILIZATION

No matter what you might think is going to happen to ePedigree or track & trace regulations going forward, more and more governments around the world are concluding that legitimate pharmaceuticals should come with unique identifiers—serial numbers—attached to them by the manufacturers and repackagers.

Serialization is upon us and I believe that in 10 years the ongoing benefits from it around the globe will significantly exceed the ongoing costs.  Whether you agree to the benefits or not you certainly must accede to the fact that Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published their “Standardized Numerical Identification (SNI) for Prescription Drug Packages – Final Guidance” document almost two years ago (see my essay “FDA Aligns with GS1 SGTIN For SNDC” from back then).  The guidance was published as purely non-binding recommendations that reflected the Agency’s current thinking, but in my opinion it is a nice piece of work and can be used as a practical guide, as far as it goes, for implementing drug serialization programs today.

Why is that?  It’s because drug manufacturers and repackagers need to serialize all of their prescription drugs that enter the state of California in 2015/2016.  Can those companies make use of the FDA’s SNI guidance to comply with the serialization requirements of the California Pedigree Law?  I will answer that question in this essay, but first Read the rest of this entry »

In recent essays I have covered the “Anatomy of an NDC”, the “Anatomy of a GTIN” and the “Updated HDMA Bar Code Guidance: A Must Read“.  Now let’s put them all together.  Why would we need to do that?  Because the U.S. FDA requires many Over-The-Counter (OTC) and all prescription drugs marketed in the United States to have their National Drug Code (NDC) presented in the form of a linear barcode on the package.  Pure and simple.  To do that in a way that your trading partners can understand—that is, to do it interoperably—you need to follow a standard.  You have two realistic choices for standard approaches to this problem:  HIBCC or GS1.

The use of HIBCC standards is fairly common in the U.S. medical surgical devices supply chain but in the pharmaceutical supply chain it is very rare.  Most companies choose GS1’s barcode standards so that’s all I’m going to focus on in this essay.  If you want more information Read the rest of this entry »

In a long awaited and much anticipated move the Healthcare Distribution Management Association (HDMA) published updated guidance for the formatting, encoding and placement of barcodes in the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain.  The document is called “HDMA Guidelines for Bar Coding in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain 2011”.  The guidance is aimed mostly at pharma manufacturers and repackagers who place barcodes on their drug packages, cases and pallets.  The last time the guide was published was in 2005 and this new edition includes some significant changes that everyone in the supply chain who deals with product and shipping container labeling should be aware of.

The updated document can be downloaded from the HDMA Marketplace web page.  It is free to HDMA members.  Non-members will need to pay a fee but don’t let that stop you from downloading a copy if you have any Read the rest of this entry »