Barcodes must on 300 drugs soon

New Delhi: To curb the menace of spurious medicines, the government is finalising the process of mandating pharmaceutical companies to print bar code on the packages of 300 drug formulations so that information such as manufacturing licence and batch number can be accessed upon scanning.

The amendments to Drugs and Cosmetic Rules, 1945 which, once approved, will come into force from May next year. "A sizable of the drugs mentioned in the list are mostly bought over the counter exposing people to the possibility of consuming counterfeit medicines.

This amendment aims to prevent supply of fake medicines and ensure improvement in public healthcare," an official source said. "A bar code or QR code will authenticate whether a particular drug is original or not," the official added.

The Union Health ministry had issued a draft gazette notification regarding the same in June seeking comments and feedback from the public.

Based on the comments and further deliberations, the ministry is in the process of finalising it. Manufacturers of 300 drug formulation products as specified in the Schedule H2 of the Rule 96 of Drugs and Cosmetics Act will be required to print or affix bar code or quick response code on its primary packaging or secondary package label that store data or information legible with software application to facilitate authentication.