Back in 2005 I created a line graph of my personal prediction of the percentage of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. supply chain that would be unit-level serialized by the manufacturer and I circulated it among my co-workers at the time. I based it purely on guesses that were “supported”–very flimsily–by the number of large pharmaceutical manufacturers who were participating in the GS1 EPCglobal Healthcare and Life Sciences (HLS) Business Action Group (BAG) (the group is now defunct), and the existence of an early version of the California Pedigree Law. The graph included a high and low line that formed a band that I thought would be where the reality would fall. In that prediction I didn’t think most manufacturers would achieve 100% serialization of their products until sometime between 2010 (high) and 2015 (low).
In my analysis at that time, I theorized that the actual percentage would start out following my “low” estimate line, but at some unpredictable point, something would happen that would cause the percentage to jump up to the “high” estimate line. At the time, I assumed the event that would cause that jump would be the U.S. Federal government issuing some kind of pedigree regulation that included a unit-level serialization requirement.
As it turned out, things moved slower than I had guessed. Here it is 2010 and the percentage of drugs in the supply chain with unit-level serial numbers on them is so small that it’s tough to give it a percentage. But I think my estimate from way back in 2005 was not bad for its time (but notice I’m not publishing the actual graph). After all, the California Pedigree deadline has been pushed out at least three times since then (from 2007 to 2009, to 2011, to 2015/1016).
I think the future is a little less murky now because, since 2005, Continue reading Estimated Rise In Serialized Drugs In The U.S. Supply Chain →