Category Archives: HDA

DSCSA, HDA, PDG

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

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

HDA Guidelines For Bar Coding In The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

It has been six years since the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) updated their full barcode guidelines (see “Updated HDMA Bar Code Guidance: A Must Read”).  They just updated it again with major changes over the 2011 version.  The new document is called “HDA Guidelines For Bar Coding In The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain” and it is available on HDA’s website here.  With the passage of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) in November of 2013, an update was long overdue.

You are forgiven if you thought the HDA updated the barcode guidelines only one year ago Continue reading HDA Guidelines For Bar Coding In The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain →

HDA

HDA’s 2017 Manufacturer Serialization Readiness Survey Results

There is a reason so many RxTrace essays have something to do with the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) (I won’t list them all, but here are two recent ones:  “HDA Traceability Seminar: RxTrace Future Topic List Explodes” and “HDA Schools FDA On DSCSA”).  It’s because they have their fingers in just about everything related to the US pharma supply chain’s preparation for compliance with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA).  HDA members are literally in the “center” of the supply chain, and the organization is at the center of many of the most important initiatives related to meeting the DSCSA, including their Origin master data sharing service (see “Dawn of HDA’s Origin, The Key to DSCSA Compliance”), their future Verification Router Service (VRS) (see “First Meeting of the HDA Verification Router Service Task Force”), and they hold the most important DSCSA conference every year (see “FDA Speaks About DSCSA At HDA”).  And their HDA Research Foundation now conducts the most important manufacturer DSCSA serialization readiness survey.  They just published the latest one.  Let’s take a look at it. Continue reading HDA’s 2017 Manufacturer Serialization Readiness Survey Results →

HDA

HDA Traceability Seminar: RxTrace Future Topic List Explodes

The 2017 Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) Traceability Seminar is now in our rearview mirror.  We’ll have to wait another full year for the next one.  As usual, this year was filled with the most pertinent presentations and conversations for those interested in serialization and traceability in the US pharma supply chain—particularly in meeting the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA).  I use events like this to discover really great new topics that need to be covered in RxTrace in the future, and this year, this event (including the IEEE Blockchain pre-event) resulted in an explosion.  That is, an explosion in the number of good topics to cover. Continue reading HDA Traceability Seminar: RxTrace Future Topic List Explodes →

HDA

Tracelink vs. HDA

What a surprise it was to learn yesterday from Phil Taylor of SecuringIndustry that Tracelink, a traceability software vendor, has filed a lawsuit against the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA), a non-profit industry organization representing the larger wholesale distributors in the United States (see SecuringIndustry, “TraceLink sues HDA over control of pharma track-and-trace data”).  I had to check the calendar to see if it was April 1st.

It wasn’t.  Continue reading Tracelink vs. HDA →

DSCSA, HDA

Dawn of HDA’s Origin, The Key to DSCSA Compliance

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This week at the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) Distribution Management Conference and Expo (DMC) the HDA and ValueCentric will provide much more detail around the new master data sharing service they plan to make available in July.  The new service—named “Origin”—is intended to provide members of the pharma supply chain with a single directory of master data for all prescription drugs marketed in the United States (see Origin website).  That is, it is a database of master data wrapped within a cloud-based service. 

Origin master data is composed Continue reading Dawn of HDA’s Origin, The Key to DSCSA Compliance →

HDA

HDA’s 2016 Serialization Readiness Survey

Because of all the major news and developments over the last six months, it has taken me way too long to fully cover the Healthcare Distribution Alliance’s (HDA’s) 2016 Serialization Readiness Survey of drug manufacturers.  In my defense, I did cover it partially in my report of the HDA 2016 Traceability Seminar (see “HDA Delivers Home Run To Record-Breaking Audience”), but the other news from that event seemed to overshadow the survey results.  The HDA survey executive summary was so well done, and the results so important that it deserves closer scrutiny.  So here is my coverage, better late than never. Continue reading HDA’s 2016 Serialization Readiness Survey →

HDA

First Meeting of the HDA Verification Router Service Task Force

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

As someone who often attempts to explain truth and reality through writing, I can really appreciate the writing skill of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (see “Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.”).  I’ve learned that the best writing has to come from your heart just as much as it does from your head, but I still make mistakes that I don’t expect to see in Dr. King’s writing.  Last week is an example.  By attending the Healthcare Distribution Alliance’s (HDA’s) Verification Router Services (VRS) Task Force meeting in Crystal City, Virginia, I learned more about HDA’s intentions for the design of the VRS. Continue reading First Meeting of the HDA Verification Router Service Task Force →