GS1 India: A Standards Organisation

India's pharmaceutical industry today enjoys global eminence for producing the largest volume of generic drugs in the world, meeting over half of the global demand for vaccines and almost 25% demand of medicines for the United Kingdom. Indian drug companies are recognised globally for their operations across the world. Despite this critical role that Indian pharmaceutical industry is playing in global healthcare, it becomes a target of various counterfeit and  verification of pharmaceuticals    allegations from across the world, from time and again. As per a study done in 2014 by one of India’s trade bodies, around 25 per cent of India’s drugs are fake, counterfeit or substandard. According to a report released in April’19 by the office of the United States Trade Representative, 20% of pharma products in India are counterfeit. As per a report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), “To Err is Human”, 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur annually due to medical errors, o...

The EPC (Electronic Product Code) is a unique number assigned to a specific product/item, which acts as a key to database to unlock information about that product.  These numbers are similar to a  Global Trade Item Number  (GTIN), which is encoded in barcodes, except for the fact that it is unique for each specific unit of a product.  EPC number is encoded in a microchip of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Radio waves are used to capture the unique ID at extremely high rates and at distances further than 10 meters, without line-of-sight contact.  RFIDs are leveraged to boost supply chain visibility and increase inventory accuracy. As per market research, integration of sensors and cloud-based technologies in RFID tags offer lucrative growth opportunities to market players across Industry segments, including supply chain management, airline baggage handling, industrial logistics, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, brand protection, libraries, me...