Health Ministry of Ukraine has initiated rescheduling of a pilot project on 2D coding (the special QR code on packages) of medicine packages, acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun said at a press conference on Wednesday. “Due to the need to bring 2D coding into line with the EU requirements, we will initiate amendments into the government’s decree, which envisaged the launch of a pilot project from September 1, 2019. Producers and government agencies were not ready for this,” she said.
According to Suprun, profile associations backed rescheduling of the project, in particular because Economic Development and Trade Ministry failed to work out the procedures for introduction of this system.
Director General of Health Ministry’s Pharmaceutical Directorate Oleksandr Komarida has reported that the required amendments now are being drafted for the respective government’s decree and by the end of the week they will be put for a public discussion.
According to Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Manufacturers of Innovative Medicines Vitaliy Hordiyenko, the amendments will affect the content of the information that will be encoded.
He noted that at present production sites of foreign manufacturers had necessary equipment for applying coding, however, it is not used for medicines manufactured for Ukraine, since manufacturers do not know what information the code should contain.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a pilot project on introduction of 2D control marking and monitoring of medicines, which is part of the Concept for the Implementation of the State Policy for Prevention of Medication Falsification.
As expected, the project to be fulfilled from September 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020.
