Tag Archives: logistics units

An Aggregation ‘Discussion’

Trade item, logistics unit…or both?

Aggregation of saleable drug packages to shipping cases and pallets is not required by the US Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) or the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) or the related Delegated Regulation (EUDR).  But certain business processes in the EU under the FMD will be difficult to accomplish without it, and after November 2023, the operation of the supply chain in the US will not be efficient without it (see “Aggregation: The Achilles’ Heel of Pharma Supply Chain Operation Under A Serialization Regulation”, “EU FMD: Aggregation Is Not Mandated, But It Will Be Necessary” and “Pharma Aggregation: How Companies Are Achieving Perfection Today”).  Absent a mandate, companies need to recognize, themselves, just how vital aggregation is to their businesses and prepare to generate it and/or make use of it.

Continue reading An Aggregation ‘Discussion’

ANVISA And The SSCC Controversy

ANVISA logoGS1’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