UK government urged to deliver on medicines security following Brexit
The UK government is being urged to deliver benefits to how medicine supply chains are secured, following the country’s departure from the EU.
With the UK’s departure from the EU, so too does the country lose access to the EU’s Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD), a piece of regulation put in place to harmonise safety measures and protect medicines from tampering and falsifications.
This issue is especially important with the world’s largest ever mass immunisation programme currently under way for Covid-19 vaccines – with both AZ and Pfizer vaccines now being rolled out – at the same time as our only means of verifying authenticity is revoked
Globally, it’s thought that one in seven medicines are counterfeit. With the UK no longer having access to the EU’s FMD, it’s possible that the country will be at as exposed risk for counterfeit medicines to enter its healthcare system.
The UK now faces a problem in how it secures the country’s medicines’ supply chain. FarmaTrust is calling on the government to develop a modern system through the use of blockchain-based technologies to secure medicines and position the UK as the foremost nation for drug security.
“While we currently have an active fake medicines risk for the UK – especially with the scale of Covid immunisation programme – it’s also an ideal moment to re-evaluate our entire medicines supply chain. Blockchain based solutions – which are immutable by definition – were not widely available when the EU directives came in and can provide far greater visibility and a full custody of medicines. It is a future-proof solution that undoubtably advanced nations will gradually switch to and, the UK with Brexit, has the opportunity to implement the world’s safest medicine supply chain right now. This type of solution will also prevent critical medicines being diverted away from UK shores and identify sub-standard drugs quickly for recall all in real-time – currently not possible with the EU’s FMD solution. It means patients and doctors will be reassured, as they will have a transparent digital record of every medicines journey from factory to pharmacy or surgery. With even the exact details of shipping and storage conditions retained – which is so critical to many medicines efficacy, for example, several of the recent Covid vaccines which require extreme cold storage,” commented Raja Sharif, CEO at FarmaTrust.