28 July 2017
Solidsoft Reply, who are the Reply group Company who specialise in creating solutions on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, has signed a multi-year agreement with the newly incorporated, not-for-profit Czech Republic National Medicines Verification Organisation; Národní organizace pro ověřování pravosti léčiv, z.s; NOOL to implement and operate the National Medicines Verification Systemin. By implementing the National Medicines Verification System, the Czech Republic are taking a huge step toward ensuring the safety of patients across the country by preventing falsified medicines being dispensed.
Jakub Dvořáček; NOOL’s Chairman of the board, stated that during the procurement he had found useful Solidsoft Reply’s effective and pragmatic approach to solution design. A key factor in selecting Solidsoft Reply as the system provider to the Czech Republic was the “simplicity of implementation and the rigorous adherence to the requirements of the delegated act that Solidsoft Reply demonstrated with their solution. A key objective of the system is to engender trust that Patients need in the medicines that they are provided with something that we are confident in providing with our partner Solidsoft Reply.”
In 2011, the European Parliament and European Commission passed the Falsified Medicines Directive (Directive 2011/62/EU) which states that medicine manufacturers must ensure all applicable medicines entering the supply chain have a unique identifier and tamper-evident seal. This allows each pack of medicine to be verified for authenticity at the point of dispense. The new system will apply to all applicable medicines dispensed throughout EU nations and from February 2019, all countries within the European Union must have a National Medicines Verification System that is connected to the European Hub to verify the authenticity of a medicine and prevent counterfeit drugs from being dispensed.
The European Medicines Verification Organisation (EMVO) represents the key stakeholders in the European pharmaceutical supply chain, EFPIA, Medicines for Europe, EAEPC, GIRP and PGEU. The EMVO engaged with Solidsoft Reply to implement and operate the European Medicines Verification Hub. The European Medicines Verification Hub is where all medicine manufacturers and parallel distributors within the supply chain can upload their product and pack data, which is circa. 10 billion packs per year. The pack data is routed to the appropriate National Medicines Verification System so that every pack can be verified regardless of which country they have been distributed to within the EU.
As the organisation that implemented the central European Medicines Verification Hub, Solidsoft Reply has designed a National Blueprint solution to meet the exact needs of the Falsified Medicines Directive, which has been rolled out across a number of EU nations to ensure compliance.
Built on the Microsoft Azure Cloud, the National Blueprint System is agile and flexible to respond to the requirements of the industry as they evolve over time and to utlise the new features and benefits of the Microsoft Azure stack. The solution automatically scales ensuring that the challenging response times can always be achieved.
As the seventh country to engage Solidsoft Reply to implement their certified National Blueprint Solution, the Czech Republic joins an increasing list of European markets including Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Lithuania.