26 April 2018
Slovenia, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Lithuania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have become the first seven countries to go live with the National Medicines Verification System, as legislation nears deadline. These systems are all Solidsoft Reply National Blueprint systems.
The seven countries in the EU bloc have taken the lead to prevent fake prescription medicines – from cold remedies to cancer treatments – from hitting the shelves in Europe, as part of the response to the Falsified Medicines Directive. They are the first countries to implement the Blueprint of a National Medicines Verification System from Solidsoft Reply, the Reply group company creating enterprise strength solutions on-premises and utilising the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
The seven countries are the first to benefit from the Solidsoft Reply blueprint system, built on the Microsoft Azure Public Cloud platform. Solidsoft Reply will roll-out a further 5 National Blueprint System’s for Croatia, Iceland, Cyprus, Malta and Switzerland with Liechtenstein.
Fake drugs are a massive worldwide problem, with more than 10 billion packs of tablets, bottles and pills dispensed each year; the World Health Organization estimates up to 1-in-10 medicines could be fake in poorer countries, leading to a $30bn a year health problem.
The Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) comes into force in February next year, obliging EU countries to check every single drugs pack that enters the supply chain. This has to be done at the point of dispense, so will fall onto pharmacists, high-street retailers, doctors’ surgeries and care organisations to comply with the regulations.
This is a huge administrative burden; as part of the Directive, all EU countries must have a National Medicines Verification System (NMVS) connected to the European Medicines Verification Organisation’s (EMVO) central Hub.
In order for all countries to benefit, Solidsoft Reply has built an API that makes it easy; the API is vendor agnostic and compatible with legacy systems. Over the next year, as more countries are added, Solidsoft Reply will run a series of IT Supplier workshops to allow pharmacies, wholesalers and their IT suppliers to access their NMVS in each country.
Solidsoft Reply is only one of two certified companies in Europe qualified to provide the FMD National Blueprint System, and it is the first supplier to have completed a fully live blueprint system.
Solidsoft Reply’s experience with Microsoft Azure public cloud has been crucial – the National Blueprint System, including the API, is an ultra-modern hyper-cloud system that scales on demand and is geo-replicated across a number of European data centres. Solidsoft Reply utilises a GAMPS aligned quality management system that has been audited on multiple occasions by the EMVO to ensure compliance.
The system has been adopted by many countries across Europe ahead of the introduction of the FMD in February next year. This is the right response to the growing problem of pack identification and to cut down on fraud and fakes in the drugs supply chain.
For further information also see the official announcements from the National Medicines Verification Organizations: