To clear the apprehensions and doubts raised by the pharmaceutical industry and its members regarding the implementation of bar coding, GS1 India under Ministry of Commerce,  is planning to organize a Webinar soon to facilitate the Pharma Industry for implementation of barcodes as per the the DGFT notification issued in June 2011.

To participate in the Webinar, each member should have an internet connection and a microphone to access it. Webinar will enable the members to interact online and chat with the concerned people for clearing their doubts regarding the bar coding system which is going to be implemented from 1st October 2011 for the tertiary level packaging.

According to the DGFT notification released earlier, if the bar coding is successful at the Tertiary level packaging, it is further going to be implemented for the secondary and primary level packaging on 1st of January and July 2012 respectively.

“The interaction will be of one and half hour duration and 20 participants can take part at a time. Depending on the requirements and number of registrations, GS1 India will conduct as many sessions as possible. All interested members should utilize this facility at the earliest,” said a source from Pharmexcil.

Earlier, the DGFT has amended the foreign trade policy and had introduced the implementation of bar-coding on export consignment of pharmaceuticals and drugs for tracing and tracking purpose.

According to this new amendment the exporters of pharmaceutical products will have to adopt a new trace and track system and incorporate its features for exported medicines using barcode technology.

As per GS 1 global standards the Primary Level packaging requires incorporation of 2D (GS1 Data matrix) barcodes on medicines at strip/vial/bottle, etc. encoding unique product identification code (GTIN) and Unique Serial Number of the Primary pack. For Secondary Level packaging it needs to incorporate encoding (1D or 2D) barcodes for unique product identification code (GTIN) Batch Number, Expiry Date and Unique Serial Number of the Secondary pack.

Tertiary Level packaging should require incorporation of barcodes (1 D) to encode unique product identification code (GTIN), Batch Number, Expiry Date and Unique Serial Number of the Tertiary pack (shipper/carton).

Under the track and trace system, manufacturers would be required to maintain serialized record of exported pharmaceutical products for a minimum period of six months after the expiry date of the product. Further authentication features will be added in the near future to integrate with the trace and track system. For tracing and tracing exported pharmaceutical products, the government is planning to set up a central portal. Earlier, affixing of barcodes was about to come in force from July 2011 but the implementation has been extended to October 2011 to facilitate more member industries.