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COVID-19’s Trace on Food and Pharma Logistics

Consumer demands for transparency increase and editors talk recent trends in track and trace and e-commerce.

Marina Mayer, Editor in Chief at both Food Logistics and Supply and Demand Chain Executive.
Marina Mayer, Editor in Chief at both Food Logistics and Supply and Demand Chain Executive.

Track and trace in pharma

Wednesday’s Trend Chat at PACK EXPO Connects covered a range of topics in logistics.

Soon to be required by the DSCSA, the saleable returns verification mandate has the pharma industry working on the Verification Router Services (VRS) in preparation for the 2023 goal of an interoperable system to meet track/trace requirements of product through the supply chain. (The mandate was expected to go into effect Nov. 2020, but the FDA recently issued an enforcement delay to 2023. Click here for more.)

The DSCSA dictates that “a wholesaler needs to verify and authenticate that a product that comes back can be restocked and resold,” says Aladin Alkawam, director of global serialization at Par Pharmaceutical. Manufacturers who receive verification requests have 24 hours to respond. Some companies are using service providers to manage verification requests while others build their own look-up directory.

Alkawam advises extensive testing and making sure the master data is accurate and complete to prevent negative verification responses. Though, challenges with the coming regulation include the lack of a standard response to negative verification, credentialing the authorization to verify product, and system inoperability. 


INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Life Sciences at PACK EXPO Southeast
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INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Life Sciences at PACK EXPO Southeast