No Surprise: DSCSA Verification Delay

Dr. Ilisa Bernstein leaves FDA for APhA

It was fairly easy to predict the FDA would invoke enforcement discretion for the wholesale distributor’s saleable returns requirement of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), as they announced last Tuesday (see “Is The FDA About To Delay Enforcement Of The Wholesaler’s 2019 Mandate?”).  The deadline for the mandate was originally this November 27, but with the announcement, will not be enforced until November 27, 2020.

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Pharma Counterfeiter Strategies In a Track & Trace World

What is a counterfeiter to do today?  Governments around the world are moving toward standardized serialization and track & trace requirements aimed directly at their bottom line.  It’s getting harder to fake your way past supply chain workers who are increasingly educated on what to look for and how to raise their suspicions to the authorities.  Or is it?  Let’s take a closer look.

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Russia Officially Cuts Length of Crypto-code in Half

Earlier this month the Russian Federation finally amended Decree #1556 to cut the length of the Signature portion of the crypto-code element of their pharmaceutical unique identifier in half.  Will that solve the problems the industry uncovered, like the barcode taking up so much space and slow read performance?  Let’s take a closer look at it, but first, a review. 

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GS1 US Publishes New DSCSA VRS Implementation Guide

Last week GS1 US announced that they have published a new implementation guideline to help companies in the US pharma supply chain make use of the new GS1 lightweight messaging standard for verification of product identifiers to meet the saleable returned drug verification requirement of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA).  The messaging standard itself was ratified by GS1 in January and it can be used to implement a wide range of product verification schemes in any industry.  The new GS1 US guideline is a valuable resource for companies wanting to apply that standard to the problem of verifying drugs that fall under the DSCSA, so it contains a wealth of information needed to ensure interoperability of Verification Router Service (VRS) solutions.

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