Tag Archives: decommission

Decommissioning Under the FMD/EUDR

iStock_83566139_smallerIt is a little surprising that the European Union Delegated Regulation (EUDR) uses a form of the word “decommission” 67 times, but not even once uses the opposite term, “commission”.  Article 3.2(c) of the EUDR defines the term ‘decommissioning of a unique identifier’ as:

“… the operation changing the active status of a unique identifier stored in the repositories system referred to in Article 31 of this Regulation to a status impeding any further successful verification of the authenticity of that unique identifier;”

It is a striking omission to define how to change the active status of a drug to impede successful verification, but to fail to define the opposite operation that sets the active status to enable successful verification in the first place. Continue reading Decommissioning Under the FMD/EUDR

EU FMD: Aggregation Is Not Mandated, But It Will Be Necessary

iStock_000016455220_SmallerEver since the E.U. Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) was passed in 2011 my European friends have touted the fact that their government mandated solution would take a “bookend” approach.  The implication was always that it would be much less complex than the ePedigree approaches that were being planned by various U.S. states, and then by the U.S. federal government with the passage in 2013 of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA).

My friends always liked to point out how simple Continue reading EU FMD: Aggregation Is Not Mandated, But It Will Be Necessary

Should Pharmacies Decommission EPCs Upon Dispense?

Santa Monica Pier
Santa Monica Pier

Important Notice To Readers of This Essay On November 27, 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Drug Quality and Security Act of 2013 into law. That act has many provisions, but one is to pre-empt all existing and future state serialization and pedigree laws like those that previously existed in California and Florida. Some or all of the information contained in this essay is about some aspect of one or more of those state laws and so that information is now obsolete. It is left here only for historical purposes for those wishing to understand those old laws and the industry’s response to them.I finally had a chance to listen to the recording of the rfXcel webinar with Virginia Herold, Executive Officer of the California Board of Pharmacy, and Joshua Room, Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice assigned to the Board of Pharmacy.  The webinar was recorded on May 29, 2013.  Ms. Herold and Mr. Room have done these kind of webinars before (see “Q&A With Virginia Herold, Executive Officer, California Board Of Pharmacy”).  But don’t worry, while there is a fair amount of repetition as you might expect, the Q&A is different enough that I always learn something new.  I found this one to be entertaining as well as informative.

One of the questions they addressed was Continue reading Should Pharmacies Decommission EPCs Upon Dispense?