Although the state officially lists January 2011 as the date in which providing serial numbers on drug packages will become law, there are rumblings that the date could be pushed back to January 2015.
The Pharmaceutical Commerce Value Chain E-newsletter, for example, ran a story in late August that said, "January 2015 is the date under consideration; federal preemption is specified." A Sept. 4 online report from the Gerson Lehman Group also published the 2015 date, saying, "The new CA timeline comes from SB1307, a bill sponsored by CA state Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas and passed by the state assembly on August 19 by a vote of 58 to 1." Compliance guidelines, according to the www.glgroup.com story, were as follows: For manufacturers, 50 percent of product lines serialized by Jan. 1, 2015; 100 percent by Jan. 1, 2016. For wholesalers, Jan. 1, 2016; Jan 1, 2017 for pharmacies. Meanwhile, at the LogiPharma event in Philadelphia in September, one speaker intimated that a federal e-pedigree plan is in the works that could render obsolete any state plan. Stay tuned for further developments...
