NPPA Identifies Top 300 Drug Brands for QR Codes

21 November 2022: Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) had been tasked with shortlisting the 300 drug brands that can be included for implementation of mandatory QR codes. The Centre has decided to introduce QR codes for ensuring authenticity and traceability for 300 common drug brands, including analgesics, vitamins, diabetes, and hypertension medicines etc. The draft notification issued in June this year, has been finalised.

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had identified the list of 300 drugs which include widely used medicines like pain-killers, contraceptives, vitamins, blood-sugar and hypertension medicines, etc. Popular brands like Dolo, Allegra, Asthalin, Augmentin, Saridon, Limcee, Calpol, Corex, Thyronorm, Unwanted 72 etc were identified. These high selling brands have been shortlisted based on their moving annual turnover value.

In the draft notification issued dated June 14, the ministry said that the manufacturers of the said formulation products shall print or affix bar code or quick response code on its primary packaging label, on the secondary package label that store data or information legible with software application to facilitate authentication.

The stored data or information shall include unique product identification code, proper and generic name of the drug, brand name, name and address of the manufacturer, batch number, date of manufacturing, date of expiry, and manufacturing licence number. Earlier, the Centre had said that active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) or bulk drugs manufactured/ imported in India shall bear a QR code on its label at each level, packaging that stores data or information readable with software application to facilitate tracking.