GS1 publishes guide to help drugmakers meet DSCSA rules

GS1 US has published a guideline to assist the US pharma industry meet new medicines traceability requirements enshrined within the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA).

The guide will help companies implement systems that will support chain of custody tracking, product serialization and item-level traceability for medications, according to the barcode standards organisation.

The document – Applying GS1 System of Standards to Pharmaceutical Chain of Custody – focuses on communicating chain of custody events between supply chain partners using Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS).

EPCIS is a GS1 Standard that allows companies to capture information about supply chain events such as shipping and receiving, and to securely share that information with trading partners in near real time. The deadline for full DSCSA interoperability is coming up in 2023.