Germany's securPharm prepares for hospital pilot

A pilot aimed at linking hospitals to the authentication system for prescription drugs will get under way next month.

Germany's national authentication platform securPharm, which was linked to the European Medicines Verification System (EMVS) hub last year, says the first hospital has now been linked into the system.

"This is a decisive milestone for the hospital pilot project, which deals with the specific question of the authenticity testing of medicinal products in hospitals," said securPharm in a statement.

According to the Falsified Medicines Directive, hospital pharmacies as well as public pharmacies will have to authenticate prescription drugs - by means of an individual serial number and tamper-evident seal - from February 9, 2019.

securPharma says that the processes for verification in a clinic pharmacy are not identical to those in a retail pharmacy – hence the new pilot study which follows an earlier pilot in retail pharmacies in 2013.

The aim of the new pilot is to test the procedures for verification and deregistration under the real-life conditions in the hospital, it says. During the pilot, possible solutions for the hospital-specific handling of large quantities of drug packs will also be developed.

"A viable solution to the implementation of the FMD in hospitals is an important part of securPharm. As the first stakeholder organization in Europe, we now deal with the specific questions of the authenticity test in the hospital," said Dr. Reinhard Hoferichter, chief executive of securPharm and coordinator of the hospital project.

securPharma is looking for pharma companies that would like to support the pilot with the supply of serialized goods.