Turkish serialisation project misses yet another deadline

Turkey has been unable to meet its planned January 1, 2010, deadline for adopting a serialised coding system for all pharmaceutical products because pharmacies have not implemented the required technology in time.

The primary purpose of Turkey's project is to counter widespread fraud in the reimbursement of medicines, thought to cost the government in the region of $150m a year. Prevention of counterfeits and other illegal medicines is an added benefit. 

The ITS (Ilaç Takip Sistemi) as it is known was first due to be in place on January 1, 2009, but in the face of strong opposition was postponed until July 1, 2009 with an additional extension to the start of 2010.

While the deadline has been met for applying the new GS1-type 2D datamatrix coding to medicines made in Turkey or imported into the country, the bottleneck seems to be the ability - and willingness in some cases - of pharmacies to implement and use the system for reading the codes.

The Turkish Pharmacists Association (TEB) negotiated an extension to the deadline to January 29, but this has also been missed, according to local press reports. 

On January 30, the TEB published a statement indicating that pharmacists should not dispense any medicines carrying the 2D datamatrix code as problems with the ITS had made the scheme unworkable.

It said the implementation of the system had been held up by "complications," including concerns about patient data confidentiality and difficulties with invoicing and the return of unused medicines.

It has been suggested that pharmaceutical manufacturers will not accept return of unused medications carrying the old coding system, and that pharmacists will have to bear the write-off costs of the disposal. Turkey’s healthcare system will not reimburse any product without the 2D datamatrix once the scheme is fully operational.

In response, the Ministry of Health has issued a statement claiming that despite the TEB's plea many pharmacists are still dispensing medicines with the new datamatrix code. It says that around 11,000 pharmacies and all pharmaceutical manufacturers are already using the ITS.

"We are very determined to push the programme through in the interests of public health and the security of the pharmaceutical supply chain," said the statement.

There is still no indication from the government, however, as to when it anticipates the full roll-out of the ITS to be completed.

Some products - such as peritoneal dialysis solutions, enteral nutrition products and some medical foods - are excluded from the system until January 1, 2011.


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