David Bellm

January 30, 2014

2 Min Read
Suppliers team up for pharma anti-counterfeiting effort
Pharma security is increasingly important

The incidence of counterfeit prescription medicines in Europe's traditional supply chain is growing. This is whyEFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) haslaunched a pilot project that includes the testing of a coding andidentification solution in Sweden.

 

Siemens IT Solutions and Services is supplying theinformation and communications technology (ICT). This solution enablescounterfeit products to be reliably identified at all times and monitors theprogress of medicines throughout the complete supply chain. The project isbeing carried out in partnership with the retail pharmacy chain Apoteket ABand local wholesalers Tamro and KD.

 

Up to now, pharmacists were reliant on visual checks to makesure that medicines were not counterfeit before dispensing to patients. Butthese days will soon be over. In the EFPIA's new coding and identificationsolution, pharmacists will check a unique identification code on eachindividual pack before it is dispensed to the patient. This 2D data matrixbarcode, with a unique serial number, can be easily generated and printed onthe packaging by the manufacturer.

 

Scanners are used to read the code and pass it to averification system that checks that the pack with that serial number has notbeen dispensed before. If it is already marked in the database as dispensed,the pharmacist is made aware of the possibility that the pack may becounterfeit, and numbers are found when scanning the packs, an alert istriggered. Pharmacy staff can then take the necessary precautions and immediatelytrigger an investigation.

 

In the EFPIA pilot project, Siemens IT Solutions andServices is the general contractor in cooperation with Hewlett Packard (HP) andSAP. The IT service provider is responsible for the project management andintegration of the information interfaces between the pharmacies and themanufacturers.

 

Siemens IT Solutions and Services is also responsible foroperating and maintaining the IT infrastructure, including the technology andinformation systems, data integration, system security and system development.SAP Belgiumwill be in charge of the SAP® object event repository (SAP OER) and theimplementation services. Hewlett Packard (HP) will provide hosting services andSAP solutions testing.

 

The aim is to introduce a standardized coding andidentification solution for the pharmaceutical sector in Europethat is compliant with existing international and European standards. If thispilot project is successful, EFPIA will present it to the EU authorities forreplication in the other EU countries and so create a uniform platform for keyplayers in the European pharmaceutical industry in the fight againstcounterfeit medicines.

 

SOURCE: European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries andAssociations; Siemens; SAP

 

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