PR: TraceLink hosts OPEN-SCS working group at its US headquarters

TraceLink Inc., the World's Largest Track and Trace Network for connecting the life sciences supply chain and eliminating counterfeit prescription drugs from the global marketplace, today announced that it hosted a successful meeting for the Open Serialization Communication Standard (OPEN-SCS) Working Group. The meeting was held April 11-13, at the TraceLink US headquarters in North Reading, Massachusetts.

OPEN-SCS is an initiative designed to enable implementation of efficient, flexible and scalable track & trace programs that can be seamlessly integrated across diversified serialization systems and intelligent devices by leveraging the use of global standards from GS1, ISA and OPC Foundation. Driven by pharmaceutical manufacturers and the serialization solution providers supporting them, the goal of the standard is to enhance interoperability across serialization activities and the systems performing these activities from the equipment level (L1) and packaging line (L2) to site operational management (L3) and enterprise serialization functions (L4).

The OPEN-SCS organization was founded by a noted group of global pharmaceutical manufacturers and serialization technology solution providers, including Abbott, Advanco, Antares Vision, OCS Checkweighers, Omron, Optel Vision, Roche, Systech International, TraceLink, Teva and Werum.

During the meeting, the workgroup continued detailed technical work in preparation for the release of the v1.0 OPEN-SCS standard, including complete user and functional specifications. In addition, the group collaborated on the following:

• Developing information models and testing plans for key use cases including serial number provisioning, unused serial number returns, master data exchange and serialization event reporting;

• Developing 2017 launch and market education plans for initial release of the standard;

• Defining subsequent phases and additional use cases for highly efficient, standardized data exchange between L2, L3 and L4 serialization layers.

"Discussions from our meeting at TraceLink headquarters were imperative in further advancing the v1.0 OPEN-SCS standard and determining plans and prototypes for the four different use cases for serialization that we are currently working on," said Marcel de Grutter, Executive Director, Open-SCS and Liaison Regulatory and Government Affairs at Abbott. "As a collaborative group working towards the same goal of standardization and interoperability, we are well on-track to meet our goals for the year."

Interoperability standards form an integral part of the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud, the only secure and validated cloud solution with a proven network model designed specifically for life sciences companies. Built on the Amazon Web Services global cloud infrastructure, the Life Sciences Cloud supports a variety of widely adopted standards, such as GS1 EPCIS, designed to reduce risk and speed time to compliance for all members of the pharmaceutical supply chain.

About TraceLink

TraceLink is the World's Largest Track and Trace Network for connecting the Life Sciences supply chain and eliminating counterfeit prescription drugs from the global marketplace. Leading businesses trust the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud to deliver complete global connectivity, visibility and traceability of pharmaceuticals from ingredient to patient. A single point and click connection to the Life Sciences Cloud creates a supply chain control tower that delivers the information, insight and collaboration needed to improve performance and reduce risk across global supply, manufacturing and distribution operations. A winner of numerous industry awards including Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 (ranked number 149 in 2016), the Amazon AWS Global Start-Up Challenge Grand Prize, and the Edison Award for Innovation in Health Management, the Life Sciences Cloud is used by businesses across the globe to meet strategic goals in ensuring global compliance, fighting drug counterfeiting, improving on-time and in-full delivery, protecting product quality and reducing operational cost. For more information on TraceLink and our solutions, visit www.tracelink.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

TraceLink is funded by Goldman Sachs, FirstMark Capital, Volition Capital and F-Prime Capital.

About OPC and OPEN-SCS

OPC is the interoperability standard for the secure and reliable exchange of data in the industrial automation space and in other industries and is technology of choice for Internet of Things. It is platform independent and ensures the seamless flow of information among devices from multiple vendors. The OPC Foundation is responsible for the development and maintenance of this standard.

OPEN-SCS is a commercial open source member subscription, combining the advantages of open source and the group membership allows members to efficiently and rapidly develop technology to deliver independent and open solutions. OPEN-SCS was founded with the mission of enabling member organizations to benefit from the open source ethos of non-proprietary open standards and specifications built on innovation, independence and an open architecture.