The era of personalized medicines has begun. These are medicines that are tailored specifically for a single patient, using that patient’s specific DNA or other blood characteristic as a guide or actual source component. The new chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T) is an exciting example. It results in the conversion of a patient’s own T-cells into cells that are able to recognize the specific type of cancer cells that the patient has, and thus able to attack them in the same way that normal T-cells attack normal infectious cells. In short, it’s a way of manipulating a person’s own immune system to attack cancer cells that it would normally be blind to. When it works, the results can be breathtaking. The question is, how are these drugs treated under today’s serialization and tracing regulations? Let’s take a look. Continue reading Personalized Medicines In A Serialized World
The Russia Ministry of Health (MoH) is conducting a serialization and tracing pilot with a number of supply chain members between February 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017 (see “
China once had one of the most aggressive pharma serialization mandates of any market. Their compliance timeline began in 2007 with a list of “essential drugs” and ended in January of this year when, effectively, all drug packages were required to carry a unique serial number. Shortly after that milestone the government suspended that requirement, pending a new regulation. Since that time the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) has posted several documents related to their new plans (see “
There are lots of mistakes a company can make when designing their solution to comply with pharma serialization and tracing regulations. One of these is to print the unique identifier on the outsert attached to their packaging. An “outsert” is a tightly folded piece of paper that contains very detailed prescribing information intended to inform medical professionals who prescribe, dispense and/or administer the drug. It contains 
