The Union Ministry of Health has made amendments to the Drugs Rules,1945 to bring Quick response (QR) codes to 300 common drug brands, including analgesics, vitamins, diabetic, and hypertensive medicines to ensure the validity and traceability.
The ministry instructed the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) to create a shortlist of 300 medicinal brands that would be eligible for obligatory QR code deployment. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) identified a list of 300 products, which includes commonly used medications such as pain relievers, contraceptives, vitamins, blood sugar, and hypertension medications.
Dolo, Allegra, Asthalin, Augmentin, Saridon, Limcee, Calpol, Corex, Thyronorm, and Unwanted 72 were listed as popular brands. These high-selling brands were chosen based on their MAT value (moving annual turnover).
The ministry said in a draft notification issued on June 14 that manufacturers of formulation products will print or affix barcodes or QR codes on their primary packaging label and secondary packaging label that store data or information that can be read by a software application to facilitate authentication.
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