Tag Archives: GTIN

Medical device manufacturers have a choice of standards to use when identifying their products for the U.S. market. The FDA’s Unique Device Identification (UDI) rule allows them to select from any identification standards organization (referred to as a “number issuing” agency) that is accredited by the Agency for that purpose. So far, three organizations have been FDA-accredited: HIBCC, ICCBBA and GS1.

ICCBBA has a lock on the identification of Continue reading GS1 Publishes Version 16 Of Their General Specifications …And Why You Should Care →

EUDA

The ‘Unique Identifier’ in the EU Delegated Act

August 24, 2015 Dirk Rodgers 2 Comments

The European Commission published a discussion draft of the European Union Delegated Act (EUDA) about two weeks ago (See “Breaking News: The EC Has Published The Delegated Act“). The EUDA was called for in the Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) back in 2011 and is primarily intended to define the “safety features” that must appear on most drugs three years after it is finalized. Assuming it gets finalized around the end of 2015, that means that manufacturers and repackagers targeting the European pharmaceutical market will need to begin placing the specified safety features on their drug packages near the end of 2018. EU Member States who already have an operational drug tracing law, like Italy and a few others, get an additional six years for companies to switch to the FMD and EUDA on drugs distributed there.

There are a lot of details Continue reading The ‘Unique Identifier’ in the EU Delegated Act →

ANVISA

Why Does ANVISA Embrace GS1 Standards, Except The Serial Number?

May 18, 2015 Dirk Rodgers 2 Comments

In Brazil, the National Agency of Sanitary Surveillance (ANVISA) has built their pharma serialization regulation around GS1 standards. They embrace the GS1 Datamatrix and GS1-128, both encoded with GS1 Application Identifiers (AI) and using GS1 Human Readable Interpretation (HRI) (see my previous essay, “The ANVISA Unique Medicine Identifier (IUM) on Drug Packages”, for my thoughts on HRI), the GS1 Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) and the GS1 Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) to be specific. But there is one GS1 standard they steer clear of: the GS1 serial number. Why is that? Continue reading Why Does ANVISA Embrace GS1 Standards, Except The Serial Number? →

ANVISA

The ANVISA Unique Medicine Identifier (IUM) on Drug Packages

May 11, 2015 Dirk Rodgers 4 Comments

Idea for a barcode that might meet ANVISA requirements

Last week I wrote about the DSCSA Product Identifier on Drug Packages in the United States. Last month I wrote about shipping container/transport package identification under the Brazil National Medicine Control System (SNCM) (see “ANVISA And The SSCC Controversy”). Today I will take a look at drug package identifiers under the SNCM as regulated there by the National Agency of Sanitary Surveillance (ANVISA). Most of the factual information included here is based on Continue reading The ANVISA Unique Medicine Identifier (IUM) on Drug Packages →

ANVISA, SSCC

ANVISA And The SSCC Controversy

April 20, 2015 Dirk Rodgers 1 Comment

GS1’s Serial Shipping Container Code, or SSCC, has been around a long time, but the logistics identifier has recently taken center-stage in a number of controversies related to meeting several country-specific pharma traceability regulations. I’ll cover these controversies in multiple essays—in this one, Brazil.

This controversy started when ANVISA, the pharma regulator in Brazil, indicated in their regulations that they expected companies to mark every “transport package” entering their supply chain with a unique identification code so that each serialized unit inside can be associated with it (the aggregation requirement).

The problem is, a homogeneous case of product can Continue reading ANVISA And The SSCC Controversy →

EPCIS

Will Use Of EPCIS Force Everyone To Use GS1 Identifiers?

October 14, 2013 Dirk Rodgers 3 Comments

Over the last five years the larger companies in the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain have increasingly aligned around GS1’s Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard for holding and communicating serialization-based events. The hope and expectation by many of these manufactures and others in the supply chain is that EPCIS will be the standard that ensures supply-chain-wide interoperability in any future track and trace or ePedigree system that the federal government might impose. On its surface it appears that EPCIS is designed around GS1’s family of serialized identifiers, which are based on GS1’s GS1 Company Prefix (GCP) (see “Anatomy of a GTIN” and “Your GS1 Company Prefix: An Enterprise Resource“). This includes Continue reading Will Use Of EPCIS Force Everyone To Use GS1 Identifiers? →

RxTrace