India launches track-and-trace packaging labelling

From October, Indian drug companies sending their medicines to overseas markets will have to include sport barcodes on their tertiary or outermost packaging in order to tackle counterfeiting.

The Indian Government initiated this move after fake Indian medicines appeared in Africa, which were found to have originated in China.

Under the initiative, companies will have to implement barcodes on secondary carton levels and primary medicine strip and bottle levels to keep a track of every product in the market place.

However, pharmaceutical industry representatives said that the move is not fool-proof as importing countries are not integrated, and will throw up logistic problems even though companies are readying themselves with barcode systems.