Tag Archives: California Pedigree Law

GS1 Healthcare US, track and trace, Uncategorized

The New GS1 Healthcare US Track & Trace Guidance

March 11, 2013 Dirk Rodgers

GS1 Healthcare US

GS1 Healthcare US, an arm of GS1 US the member organization (MO) of the global GS1 standards organization, has just published the “preliminary version” of a track & trace implementation guide. The full title is “Implementation Guideline, Applying GS1 Standards to U.S. Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Business Processes To Support Pedigree And Track & Trace, Release 1.0”.

This document contains the accumulation of thought and best practices generated over the last nine years within various working groups of GS1 Healthcare US and from pilots conducted by its members (including the Abbott Labs, McKesson, VA and GHX pilot that I wrote about in “The Significance of the Abbott, McKesson and VA Pilot”). Pulling it all together into a single coherent document turned out to Continue reading The New GS1 Healthcare US Track & Trace Guidance →

California Pedigree Law

The New Grandfathering Provisions Of The California Pedigree Law

March 4, 2013 Dirk Rodgers 1 Comment

At the February 5, 2013 meeting of the California Board of Pharmacy the Board took the final vote to proceed with filing a number of important clarifying regulations–the first since the Ridley-Thomas bill was enacted in 2008 that established the current staggered effective dates. These include the recognition of the FDA Standardized Numeric Identifier (SNI) as the “unique identifier” for use on each drug package, and definition around how supply chain companies can grandfather their existing non-serialized, non-pedigreed stock at the time the law goes into effect.

The official minutes of the meeting are not yet available but the video has been posted for a few weeks now. The pertinent action occurs in the first video of the two day meeting at approximately 2:24:00 (hours:minutes:seconds). (Don’t you just love government meetings on YouTube?) The source text of the pending regulation (which is Continue reading The New Grandfathering Provisions Of The California Pedigree Law →

pedigree software

E-Pedigree Vendor Selection

February 25, 2013 Dirk Rodgers 10 Comments

On Friday after 5pm I received a call from a potential consulting client. At least I thought that’s what they were. It turned out, it was a headhunter looking for warm bodies to work on serialization and pedigree projects to fill a quota he has from the consulting arm of one of the big-4 accounting firms. The people he’s looking for would probably work on projects under the direction of one of their long-term senior consultants. I’m not looking for that kind of opportunity.

My impression is that this is a sign that we are entering the “Y2K” phase of the California E-pedigree deadlines. That is, it is time for lots of “staff augmentation” companies to staff-up to offer “expertise” in droves. Continue reading E-Pedigree Vendor Selection →

California Pedigree

California ePedigree Uncertainty

February 4, 2013 Dirk Rodgers

A lot of things related to ePedigree in the U.S. supply chain are cooking right now but they seem to be happening a little too slowly, so it will be interesting to see where it all ends up in the next few years. After developing the Drug Pedigree Messaging Standard (DPMS) in 2006-2007, GS1 is now taking only the initial steps toward adding network-centric ePedigree capabilities to their EPCIS and related standards. The California Board of Pharmacy says they would like to be able to accept a semi-centralized network centric approach as long as it includes all the stuff listed in their pedigree law. For nearly 18 months, GS1 U.S. has been “nearing publication” of a draft guideline—six years in the making—that is supposed to help companies who want to use EPCIS to meet the California law. Congress considered passing a Federal track & trace regulation that would have preempted the California law last year but failed from lack of agreement between the parties. Some companies are making good progress on meeting the serialization requirement but the number who have the pedigree part figured out are those who have settled on DPMS. All the while the California pedigree deadlines are rushing toward us like a bus-sized asteroid heading straight toward Earth. Not surprisingly, the asteroid is moving faster than the efforts to divert or absorb it.

I’ve written about my theory that the date of impact won’t be pushed out again, no matter what happens (for a full explanation of that theory, see “Will The California ePedigree Dates Slip Again?”).

What can be done? In my view, it’s going to be determined by Continue reading California ePedigree Uncertainty →

FDA

InBrief: FDA Again Says It Plans To Publish Track & Trace Guidance By Year End

January 31, 2013 Dirk Rodgers

Many thanks to Alec Gaffney of Regulatory Focus for pointing out that the FDA just published their annual list of draft guidances that they anticipate will be published before the end of 2013. Of course, no guarantees come with it. In fact, they included the anticipation of Track & Trace guidance in last year’s list as well but nothing was published (See “FDA To Publish Track & Trace Standard By Year End“). That’s why it’s not surprising that it’s on the list again this year.

The FDA list seems to come out earlier each year. Considering that the Track & Trace guidance was included on last year’s list, perhaps it will be published in the near future. I’m not holding my breath, but it sure would be an interesting addition to the current situation in California where Continue reading InBrief: FDA Again Says It Plans To Publish Track & Trace Guidance By Year End →

Inference

How Should Inference Work?

January 23, 2013 Dirk Rodgers 2 Comments

The wide-scale use of “inference” in the pharmaceutical supply chain is essential to the successful operation of a track & track or ePedigree system. Companies cannot be expected to open every case they plan to ship, or that they receive, so that they can figure out exactly which package-level serial numbers are involved. The use of the serial number packaging hierarchy, or, “Aggregation information”, to “infer” which packages are being shipped or received is the only way to maintain a level of supply chain efficiency that is close to pre-serialization levels. On the other hand, regulator acceptance of the use of inference in the supply chain has the potential to complicate their investigation of criminals.

In recognition of its importance in maintaining efficiencies, the California legislature instructed the Board of Pharmacy to draw up rules that would allow companies to optionally make use of it (see my essay “Inference in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain” for the exact text of the inference provisions of the California Business and Professions Code). It leaves the important question about who Continue reading How Should Inference Work? →

data ownership

Data Ownership In The Track & Trace Cloud

January 14, 2013 Dirk Rodgers 3 Comments

Who will own the data that supply chain trading partners store in some future cloud-based, semi-centralized Network Centric ePedigree (NCeP) data repository? I met one potential future repository service provider who seemed to think that they would own that data. Imagine their excitement. All the data about where drugs go throughout the supply chain! Think of the value they could mine from that.

Well, that’s never going to happen because companies in the supply chain won’t sign up for handing over all of their supply chain data to some third-party just so they can comply with regulations, especially when there exists an alternative approach that would allow them to avoid using a third-party and still comply (by using DPMS). And regulatory agencies are Continue reading Data Ownership In The Track & Trace Cloud →

California Pedigree Law

“The Shadows Of Things That MAY BE, Only” : EPCIS and California Compliance

January 7, 2013 Dirk Rodgers 1 Comment

Currently, we know that companies can use GS1’s Drug Pedigree Messaging Standard (DPMS) to comply with the California pedigree law. That’s been known for a long time now. But many companies have been hoping to use GS1’s more general purpose Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard instead for almost as long. For just as long, it has been known that a number of problems arise when you try to figure out exactly how to apply EPCIS to California compliance.

The problem is, EPCIS was originally envisioned by its creators to share supply chain “visibility” data. That is, event data that was to be collected automatically based on Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) reads picked up by readers that were to be spread around the supply chain by each of its members. The collection of RFID readers were to form a kind of “visibility” of each RFID tag applied to the products in the supply chain. From this visibility would come benefits. One of those benefits was to be Continue reading “The Shadows Of Things That MAY BE, Only” : EPCIS and California Compliance →

RxTrace