FDA’s Firm Stance on DSCSA Compliance: No More Delays

June 6, 2024 Christian Souza Leave a comment

The FDA recently emphasized the urgent need for compliance with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), impacting the pharmaceutical industry significantly. At the 2024 FDLI Annual Conference, Patrizia Cavazzoni, Director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), confirmed that there will be no further extensions to the compliance deadline. This announcement marks a critical step in the FDA’s ongoing efforts to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Continue reading →

DSCSA, FDA

FDA Official Will not extend the 2023 deadline

August 18, 2021 Christian Souza

Deadline will not be extended

As reported by the Regulatory Focus, the FDA will not delay the interoperability deadline for the DSCSA 2023 deadline. You can for sure group the saleable returns requirements as well. The US Food and Drug Administration is working “full tilt” towards implementing requirements calling for manufacturers and trading partners to have a full interoperable electronic track and trace system in place by 2023.

Continue reading →

DSCSA, FDA

The FDA’s New Guidance for 2021 Explained

August 10, 2021 Christian Souza

As the premier regulatory body for ingestible products in the United States, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is responsible for safeguarding public health through safety measures, guidance, and regulations. The importance of the FDA’s job cannot be stressed enough, and in the current global health crisis we find ourselves in, this responsibility is even more critical.

The FDA’s annual guidance schedule is often more aspirational than strictly practical, but it does a good job in providing useful insights into what areas the FDA’s CDER (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) has given priority for that particular year.

You can find updated lists for the FDA’s guidance for 2021 here. In this article, we’ll focus on the guidance as it relates to the DSCSA (Drug Supply Chain Security Act).

Continue reading →

FDA, FSMA

FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), Explained

May 24, 2021 Christian Souza

One of the most important things for a country to safeguard is the health and safety of its residents. Hazards don’t always arrive in plain sight and are most often hidden in things we trust and consume on a daily basis. The biggest example of this is the food we eat.

Food has the ability to nourish us and provide us with the energy to thrive in our existence, but it can also severely damage our health if not mandated properly. This is the main reason why the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was enacted in 2011 by President Obama.

The specifics of the act are complicated, and the nature of the subject matter requires extensive regulations to be upheld. In this article, we’ll give you an overview of everything worth knowing about the FSMA guidelines. We’ll show you the importance of food regulation standards, we’ll get into each aspect of the FSMA in more detail and we’ll end with what’s changed for 2021.

Continue reading →

DSCSA, HDA, PDG

2 Organizations You Need to Join to Get Ready for the DSCSA Phase II

April 19, 2021 Christian Souza

If you are a pharmaceutical company serious about meeting the requirements of Phase II of the DSCSA, there are two organizations you must join.

The first is the Partnership for DSCSA Governance, or the PDG. It is an organization formed by manufacturers, wholesalers, dispensers, and solution providers that are working to solve the interoperability requirements for the DSCSA for 2023. The PDG is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit business association requiring a yearly membership fee to join.

The other is the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, or HDA, which is a long-running organization that represents many members of the pharma supply chain in a quest to advocate for public policy that supports patient access to medical products through safe, efficient, and effective distribution. The HDA also requires a yearly membership fee.

Today’s post will look at both organizations, profile what they do, and then let you know why joining them is crucial for getting the most out of the DSCSA.

Continue reading →

CBD, Hemp, Marijuana

Does the DSCSA Affect How the Medical Marijuana Industry Is Regulated?

March 8, 2021 Christian Souza

The Drug Supply Chain Security Act was enacted in 2013 to put protocols into place for the serialization and traceability of pharmaceuticals that move through the drug supply chain – from manufacturer through to the distributors until they reach the hands of the patient. The goal being to ensure the safety and purity of each medication.

With medical marijuana being legalized in more states, this brings up the important question of if and how medical use marijuana should be handled under the guidelines of the DSCSA. Currently, the only states where medical marijuana is prohibited for all uses are Nebraska, Idaho and South Dakota. For the rest of the country, there are circumstances in which marijuana can be legally dispensed and consumed with a doctor’s prescription. Obviously, there’s the need for strict regulations, but the process for putting these regulations into place remains a little cloudy.

Continue reading →

DSCSA, EPCIS

EPCIS GUIDE for your organization

February 23, 2021 Christian Souza

*NOTE – We are including a Free Trading Partner Integration template for you to download at the end of this article.

The 2023 DSCSA requirement looms in the near future and pharma companies are frantically working together to create and implement the technological goals that create the interoperable system by November 27, 2023. To achieve the three areas of interoperability as defined by the PDSA—exchange, verification, and tracing—these companies must also land on a common informational framework.

In other words, to create a system that allows for the DSCSA vision of “fully interoperable, electronic tracing of products at the package level,” the industry needs to pick a common standard and use it throughout pharma. I discuss the challenges in my previous article: Drug Supply Chain Security Act, Phase II: Here’s what you MUST know.

Gary Lerner, the president at Gateway Checker Corporation, explained what it would take to make this happen. In short: “Capturing and exchanging information at this level of specificity requires a common information framework.”

Continue reading →

COVID-19, DSCSA, FDA

Impact of COVID-19 on DSCSA Implementation

February 9, 2021 Christian Souza 2 Comments

Before the pandemic struck, the pharma industry was working feverishly to implement and enforce all the requirements of the DSCSA, especially the Phase II requirements scheduled for November of 2023. When COVID-19 dramatically changed the business landscape, the implementation became even more of an uphill battle, with both time and the pandemic acting as a cause of concern.

In today’s post, we will look at COVID-19 and its impact on the DSCSA: from the FDA loosening some of the guidelines to the different areas of the DSCSA that are being impacted the most. If we can understand the relationship between these two, we can have a better grasp of realistic understandings and the best course of action moving forward.

Continue reading →

RxTrace

FDA’s Firm Stance on DSCSA Compliance: No More Delays

FDA Official Will not extend the 2023 deadline

The FDA’s New Guidance for 2021 Explained

FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), Explained

2 Organizations You Need to Join to Get Ready for the DSCSA Phase II

Does the DSCSA Affect How the Medical Marijuana Industry Is Regulated?

EPCIS GUIDE for your organization

Impact of COVID-19 on DSCSA Implementation

…a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between healthcare supply chains, track and trace technology, standards and global regulatory compliance