Back in October the FDA announced the extended use of enforcement discretion to temporarily set aside the data exchange provisions of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) for dispensers until March 1, 2016 (see “FDA Extends Dispenser Delay in DSCSA Enforcement“). That was itself an additional four month extension to the four month enforcement discretion they originally announced on June 30 (see “FDA Publishes New Guidance Delaying Dispenser 3T Requirements Until November 1, 2015“). Many dispensers were hoping for another extension in these last few days of February. It turns out, the enforcement discretion will be extended until further notice, but apparently mostly just for first responders. Continue reading FDA Limits Ongoing Dispenser Enforcement Discretion To First Responders
Monthly Archives: February 2016
Sponsored: The Many Faces Of The FDA
Why is there such a wide gap between the actions of the UDI face of the FDA and the DSCSA face?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an agency of the U.S. government that falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, which is under the leadership of the current Presidential Administration through a cabinet seat. But it is also a concept, and the concept has been conceived, modified, adjusted, influenced and expanded—especially expanded—by many thousands of members of Congress that have served from 1906 to 2016. It started as a nearly powerless monitoring agency in 1906 with the passage of the Federal Food and Drugs Act. But in the aftermath of a number of widely-reported incidents of harm and deaths caused by cosmetics and medicines, the Congress passed the original Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (FD&C) in 1938 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law.
Right from the beginning you had an agency with at least three faces: foods, drugs and cosmetics. Continue reading Sponsored: The Many Faces Of The FDA
Meeting U.S. and E.U. Drug Serialization Requirements With A Single Solution
As serialization mandates sweep the world you would think that drug manufacturers and repackagers would just deploy one generic “serialization application” and simply turn it on for any drugs that requires it, and turn it off for any that do not. That’s probably what the legislatures and regulators who create the requirements think. RxTrace readers know it’s not nearly that easy.
The problem is that every regulation requires something different. The only common thread is that there is always a “serial number” requirement in there somewhere (thus the name). But the serial number itself is usually defined differently and everything else that surrounds the serial number is often not the same. It’s not a matter of just turning it on and off, it’s a matter of changing a bunch of parameters, which result in significantly more complexity in the setup, testing and validation of the system for each market. Continue reading Meeting U.S. and E.U. Drug Serialization Requirements With A Single Solution
FDA To Hold DSCSA Pilots Workshop
As we saw last fall, the FDA is planning to conduct at least one pilot project in 2016 to fulfill its DSCSA mandate to do so. The pilot should focus on the 2023 DSCSA technologies and processes (see “FDA Looking For Consulting Org To Run DSCSA Pilots“). Today we learned that a pilot will indeed occur this year, and the FDA wants your input into its design and goals. To accomplish that quickly, the FDA will establish a docket next Tuesday for collecting written comments, and a public workshop for collecting verbal comments.
The last DSCSA public workshop Continue reading FDA To Hold DSCSA Pilots Workshop
The E.C. Officially Published The Pharma Safety Feature Delegated Act This Morning
With the official publication of the European Union Delegated Act (EUDA), the clock starts for pharmaceutical manufacturers who supply drugs for the E. U. market to include two safety features on their drug packages. One safety feature is some type of tamper evident seal, and the other is a “unique identifier”, also known as “serialisation” (see “The ‘Unique Identifier’ in the EU Delegated Act“). Continue reading The E.C. Officially Published The Pharma Safety Feature Delegated Act This Morning
U.S. Drug Wholesale Distributors Provide Direction To Manufacturers
Over the next few years, the U.S. drug wholesale distributors are going to start dictating their specific requirements related to the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) to their suppliers. For the “Big 3” U.S. wholesale distributors, those suppliers happen to be nearly every drug manufacturer who markets drugs in the United States. The “Big 3” include McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, which together distribute about 85% of all drugs that pass through the domestic supply chain.
Of course, each segment has Continue reading U.S. Drug Wholesale Distributors Provide Direction To Manufacturers
FDA Considering A Delay Of A Small Part Of The UDI Rule
For the second time this week, the FDA posted something related to the things I pay the most attention to. Earlier this week it was about the DSCSA. This time it was a draft guidance for comment on a proposed delay in enforcement of a small part of the Unique Device Identification (UDI) final rule. I’ve seen a lot of mentions around the internet about this new FDA posting but none of them really explain it very well (including the FDA). I’d like to take a stab.
Way back in around 1970 the FDA created a numbering system for drugs and one for devices. The one for drugs Continue reading FDA Considering A Delay Of A Small Part Of The UDI Rule
FDA Announces OMB Approval Of One DSCSA Draft Guidance
It’s funny. Here we are waiting for the FDA to publish four new Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) guidance documents (see “Who Is Being Harmed By Four Overdue FDA DSCSA Guidances?“), when an unexpected notice is published about an older draft DSCSA guidance document. When I first looked at the title of the notice I had to read it four times before I could get myself to believe what I was seeing.
That’s right, this morning the FDA Continue reading FDA Announces OMB Approval Of One DSCSA Draft Guidance
