There are a number of misconceptions floating around the industry right now about what will happen in November of 2023, when the Enhanced Drug Distribution Security (EDDS) phase mandated by the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) begins. It is surprising where you hear some of these, but they are all based on mis-reads of the DSCSA law itself. I’ll explain the myths, and then I will try to provide extracts from the DSCSA that expose them as myths. Continue reading 5 Myths About The DSCSA In 2023
Tag Archives: GS1 US
The HDA Bar Code Quick Start Guide For Meeting The DSCSA And Other FDA Regulations
The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) (formerly HDMA) published their highly anticipated “Guidelines for Bar Coding in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Quick Start Guide” a few weeks ago. Do yourself a favor and stop reading this essay right now, click on the link and download your copy and read it. It is free, and it is essential reading for manufacturers and solution providers who expect to develop and deploy solutions that ship serialized units and cases of prescription drugs to U.S. wholesale distributors. This includes solutions that Continue reading The HDA Bar Code Quick Start Guide For Meeting The DSCSA And Other FDA Regulations
Product Identification And National Registration Codes
There is a long-running tug-of-war going on between GS1 and national governments around the world over how exactly to identify medical products, whether devices or pharmaceuticals. National governments regulate those products to maximize the health of their citizens and so they take a natural interest in how they are identified. They want to eliminate all ambiguity between products within their market. They need to be able to tightly grant market authorization, revoke it and oversee recalls when warranted. To do that effectively, they need a way of clearly and concisely referencing a given product. That same way of referencing the product should also be used for patient education and for healthcare professional prescribing. Bad things happen when mistakes are made in the identification of healthcare products.
GS1 offers a global standard way of identifying Continue reading Product Identification And National Registration Codes
FDA Speaks At GS1 Connect
Last week, Connie Jung, RPh, PhD, Acting Associate Director for Policy and Communications, Office of Drug Security, Integrity, & Recalls, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, spoke about the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) at the GS1 US Connect event in Washington DC. This was our latest opportunity to get a glimpse of what the FDA is thinking and what they are doing. Dr. Jung spoke for about 50 minutes and then answered questions from the audience. Continue reading FDA Speaks At GS1 Connect
GLN: The Lowly Identifier That Could Kill The Use Of EPCIS For Pharma Regulatory Compliance
Almost everyone agrees that GS1’s Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard will be used by drug manufacturers and the large wholesale distributors in the United States for compliance with the serialization requirement of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA). Even I think that (see “Will EPCIS Event Exchange Replace EDI ASNs for DSCSA Someday?”). But there is a problem that could kill its use beyond the internal uses of today, keeping it from being used for data exchange or the data repositories that will eventually become the way data is “exchanged” in 2023 as part of the Enhanced Drug Distribution Security (EDDS) phase of the DSCSA.
The problem is, EPCIS defaults to the use of a single location identifier, the GS1 Global Location Number (GLN). So what? Why is that a problem? Let me explain. Continue reading GLN: The Lowly Identifier That Could Kill The Use Of EPCIS For Pharma Regulatory Compliance
An Open Letter To The FDA, RE: Please Fix The National Drug Code Soon
Dear FDA,
Thanks for inviting me to your DSCSA Pilot Party this week. I look forward to visiting you at your Silver Spring home so we can catch up on what’s been happing in our lives recently. I’m glad you are thinking more about the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) lately. I am too.
In fact, I’ve been thinking about how nice it would be if you would fix the broken National Drug Code (NDC) as part of the implementation of the DSCSA. It’s really not very hard to do. You already laid out and tested the path that needs to be followed when you implemented the Unique Device Identification (UDI) numbering system for medical devices a few years ago.
Remember how happy that made me? Remember, I called it “revolutionary” (see “FDA Proposed UDI: A Revolution In Number Assignment”), and it was! But before I get to how you could do it for pharmaceuticals, let me explain why you should do it as clearly as I can. Continue reading An Open Letter To The FDA, RE: Please Fix The National Drug Code Soon
Meeting U.S. and E.U. Drug Serialization Requirements With A Single Solution
As serialization mandates sweep the world you would think that drug manufacturers and repackagers would just deploy one generic “serialization application” and simply turn it on for any drugs that requires it, and turn it off for any that do not. That’s probably what the legislatures and regulators who create the requirements think. RxTrace readers know it’s not nearly that easy.
The problem is that every regulation requires something different. The only common thread is that there is always a “serial number” requirement in there somewhere (thus the name). But the serial number itself is usually defined differently and everything else that surrounds the serial number is often not the same. It’s not a matter of just turning it on and off, it’s a matter of changing a bunch of parameters, which result in significantly more complexity in the setup, testing and validation of the system for each market. Continue reading Meeting U.S. and E.U. Drug Serialization Requirements With A Single Solution
U.S. Drug Wholesale Distributors Provide Direction To Manufacturers
Over the next few years, the U.S. drug wholesale distributors are going to start dictating their specific requirements related to the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) to their suppliers. For the “Big 3” U.S. wholesale distributors, those suppliers happen to be nearly every drug manufacturer who markets drugs in the United States. The “Big 3” include McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, which together distribute about 85% of all drugs that pass through the domestic supply chain.
Of course, each segment has Continue reading U.S. Drug Wholesale Distributors Provide Direction To Manufacturers