Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) endorsed the decision of the commerce ministry to adopt barcode for pharma exports to enable tracking of products so as to address the concerns over spurious and fake drugs being exported from India. However, IPA felt that there is a need to fine tune the track and trace technology selected for barcodes on pharma exports to make it more practical and implementable.

The commerce ministry has made it mandatory for all drug exporters to use barcode on their products to tackle the growing incidence of counterfeit drugs in global markets from July 1, 2012. According to the ministry, barcodes on pharma exports at all levels of packaging will reduce the chances of counterfeit drugs being exported from India. Agreeing to which, IPA stated that they were not against the implementation of the bar coding since it is in the larger interest of the industry, provided that it is done in an organised manner. IPA stressed that what they are worried about is the aftermath of the hurried implementation on the exports and the revenue generated through this.

IPA pointed out that the government and the industry needs to be more prepared and sensitised about this matter before implementing the same to avoid repercussion in the business. DG Shah, secretary general, IPA stressed that what the industry needs is a strong plan that can be adopted in totality rather than in phase manner. He informed, “Government must work on selecting an appropriate technology that comes out with a integrated system having solution for all the three level of bar codes at one go. This is because the industry does not have the kind of economical backup to keep up with the changing requirements needed to revise or modify the technology in phased manner.”

Shah further stressed in the light of this situation it is imperative of the government to consider giving time to the industry to adopt to these changes so as to deal with procurement of new equipments, modification of the existing equipments as mandated by the government for the implementation process, training etc. One of the important point highlighted by the IPA was  need for time to get the required clearance from each of the national drug authorities as well.

“It is mandatory for the manufacturers intending to export the drugs with the bar-code in place, to inform and get the required clearance from the drug authorities of that country, on the technology adopted before exporting the same.

There are lot of complications involved in this process that need deliberation and careful planning before getting it started. Taking into consideration the risk-benefit parametres, the government much re-consider its plan and relax the time frame to adopt these changes,” Shah added.

Now with the final hurdle cleared with the HC decision in favour of the governments stand for the implementation of the barcode on pharma packaging for exports, most of the industry remains to be in a state of limbo over the soon approaching date of implementation. Some officials from the government state that under the present circumstances, the ministry is likely to consider extending the deadline for implementation of barcodes on pharma exports, which is officially yet to be confirmed.