DSCSA

Value Beyond Compliance – The DSCSA as an Opportunity for Businesses

Brigitte Naftalin Written by Brigitte Naftalin
29-May-2017

As from November, prescription medicines destined for the American market will have to be serialized, meaning pharmaceutical companies and CMOs alike will have to have an operational serialization solution in place before the end of the year. But requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) don’t stop there. Full implementation will be reached in 2023 when full unit level traceability with data exchange will be mandatory.

The challenges of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act

A compliance program of this scale creates substantial implementation challenges as well as disruptions across organizations and the pharmaceutical supply chain. DSCSA compliance will also require significant investment on hardware and software level together with the development of new processes to ensure correct serialization, aggregation, reporting and so forth.

Serialization compliance as an opportunity

While the challenges and business risks linked to serialization mandates and DSCSA compliance are undeniable, the right serialization and traceability solution can offer a multitude of benefits. According to a recent KPMG report*, more and more organizations are aware that “serialization-enabled processes and transactional data can lead to companies deriving value from their investments, increasing productivity, and enhancing brand and revenue protection”. A scalable Cloud solution with integrated business intelligence applications and more can help businesses manage, enrich, analyze and enhance the immense amount of data generated through serialization and track&trace processes. Indeed, more than of 70% of the KPMG survey respondents “have or plan to use serialization data to enhance business processes” and only 29% “of participants have no future plans to use serialization data with existing business practices”.

DSCSA compliance for a better Supply Chain

Tracking where your products are going and (or not) arriving is an effective means to protect your brand from gray markets. Other industries have been using track&trace to fight counterfeits and product diversion in the supply chain for a while now. In light of upcoming serialization and traceability requirements in the United States, 52% of respondents from the pharmaceutical industry taking part in the KPMG survey consider diversion monitoring as an important feature when putting in place a serialization solution to comply with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act.

* The 2017 Serialization & Traceability Trends by KPMG Healthcare & Life Sciences Institute “explores the industry’s current state of readiness to meet the 2017 DSCSA requirements and intentions to leverage associated value-added opportunities.”

Brigitte Naftalin
Brigitte Naftalin

Brigitte has an extensive background in journalism, marketing and international business. During her travels in Africa and South-East Asia, she has learned first-hand about the importance of malaria drugs and was shocked about the percentage of counterfeit medicines in certain countries. Brigitte has joined Adents’ marketing team in July 2016 to be able to contribute to a safer drug supply chain through serialization.

DISCOVER MORE ...

Serialization of medicines in Russia: Deadline is officially extended!
Serialization of medicines in Russia: Deadline is officially extended!
Just before New Year, the federal law No. 346344-7 amending Government Decree 1556 "On approval of the Regulations on the system of monitoring the movement of medicines for medical use" was officially signed and published
EU FMD: new FAQ document gives guidance on safety features for medicinal products
EU FMD: new FAQ document gives guidance on safety features for medicinal products
The EU commission has released version 16 of the FAQS related to the EU Falsified Medicines Directive including recommendations on coding requirements and serial number generation.