Pharmaceutical Industry Has One Year To Comply With DSCSA

In just one year, the pharmaceutical industry will begin to reach deadlines for the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), which requires manufacturers to serialize their products. The goal of these new rules is to ensure greater safety by specifically requiring serial numbers on the products themselves and making it easier for patients and care providers to identify drugs and use them as intended.

While a full year may seem like a lot of time to prepare, the reality is that the pharmaceutical industry must overcome a number of complications before it will be ready to fully adopt the new rules. 

Many companies are new to the DSCSA.

As Chris Purdy, Manager of Engineering at American Health Packaging, told Pharmaceutica Processing, many companies are new to the DSCSA and still need to spend more time learning what specific requirements they should be paying the most attention to during this upcoming adjustment period. They will then have to develop plans unique to their needs.

“Certain changes to the current packages may be required,” Purdy added. “Companies are making changes to labeling to give themselves more space to print the human readable data and 2D barcode. Limited space makes it necessary for these changes.”

A Packaging Digest article noted that there are a number of important questions that companies need to ask themselves as they proceed to their compliance plans. For instance, estimates of the amount of time that it might take to comply will have to take any necessary software updates to new or existing printing systems into account.

Durafast offers a number of different printing solutions to help you develop the labels you need to comply with government regulations. Contact us today for more information!