How To Manage Pharma Recalls With Track-and-Trace Solutions

Is Your Recall Process Digital? The Power of Integrated Pharma Recalls Track and Trace Solutions.  

The pharmaceutical supply chain is a web of risk; only robust pharma recalls track and trace solutions can offer the necessary visibility and control required to manage it.  

In the high-regulated life sciences environment, how well your pharma recalls track and trace solution works is the ultimate measure of your dedication to patient safety. The pharma business is essentially tasked with public health, so strict product safety and compliance are the non-negotiable foundation of each and every operation. When something goes wrong, the process of recall is the critical process for safeguarding patients and for aggressively maintaining a brand's reputation and market position.   

But the global, multi-layered character of drug distribution makes old-fashioned recall techniques redundant and disorganized. This is why technological involvement is a necessity. The future of drug safety is characterized by the implementation of track-and-trace technology in the pharma sector. By assigning an individual's digital identity to each saleable product unit and monitoring its custody, this technology supplies the necessary, detailed information for crisis management.  

In this blog, we dive deep into the absolute need for this technology, considering how strong pharma recalls track and trace solutions deliver the accuracy, velocity, and visibility needed to handle recalls successfully and meet global regulatory requirements.  

Understanding Pharma Recalls 

A drug product recall is the official procedure to withdraw a marketed drug product from the market or correct it because of a safety or quality problem. Recalls are graded by severity—Class I, II, or III—depending on the likelihood and severity of adverse health effects, and are triggered voluntarily by the sponsor or compulsorily by authorities such as the FDA. The grade determines the speed and extent of the operation needed.   

The underlying reasons for recalls tend to be systemic in nature and reflect weaknesses in manufacturing operations or quality controls. Typical causes for pharma recalls tend to include labeling mix-ups (e.g., mismeasured drug strength), foreign contamination (e.g., microbial or particulate contamination), and critical packaging malformations (e.g., loss of container closure integrity). Such failures directly call the integrity of a product into question.   

Regulatory agencies like the FDA and EMA require manufacturers to have complete, documented processes for effective, timely, and complete product recovery. Satisfying quality requirements, such as SK5, the principle of field safety and recall management, involves ongoing assurance that a company will be able to perform an accurate recall process and leave an auditable trace of the whole process.  

Challenges in Managing Pharma Recalls 

The problem of doing a pharmaceutical recall effectively directly arises from the broken structure of today's global supply chain. A product could go through many CMOs, 3PLs, distributors, and pharmacies, creating a sprawling and frequently murky web of custodians. That complex matrix makes it almost impossible to track impacted batches rapidly and correctly with legacy lot-based systems.   

Without advanced tools, determining the specific location of each affected unit of product is a significant logistical problem, causing companies to issue overly comprehensive recalls that take safe product out of the market—a financial burden resulting in unnecessary stock loss and possible shortages. In addition, managing communication with distributors, pharmacies, and patients involves distributing urgent, traceable messages among diverse stakeholders and jurisdictions, a mechanism seriously prone to human error and delay.   

Last but not least, reporting and document pressure from regulations is staggering. Governments expect comprehensive, auditable records on the recall plan, communication activity, and actual amount of product traced back. Without a centralized digital platform, creating these reports after the fact under emergency situations is time-consuming and greatly expands regulatory risk.  

Introduction to Track-and-Trace Solutions 

A Track-and-Trace system is a formal technological infrastructure that tracks and documents the movement and condition of a pharma product through its supply chain lifecycle as a whole. Its primary function is to ensure authenticity of the product and facilitate traceability of the product in pharma (SK4), ensuring patient safety and regulatory adherence directly.   

The underlying technology is dependent upon a number of critical features: 

• Serialization (SK1): Every saleable unit has a one-of-a-kind, random identifier, usually encoded in a 2D Data Matrix code. 

• Unique Identifiers: The code incorporates required product details (GTIN, lot, expiration date) with the one-of-a-kind serial number. 

• Scanning and Monitoring: Electronic capture of the unique ID at each important transaction location (packaging, shipping, receiving), forming an uninterrupted, auditable chain of custody.

Such systems are propelled by the requirement to comply with international rules. The U.S. DSCSA traceability regulations (SK3) and the EU FMD mandate that manufacturers implement this technology to authenticate the validity of their supply chain. Track-and-trace is thus the operational imperative for trading and distributing drugs lawfully across the globe.  

How Track-and-Trace Facilitates Pharma Recalls 

The strength of combining pharmaceutical serialization (SK1) with quality processes is its potential to bring unmatched surgical precision into play during a crisis. This permits quick identification of the affected batches. By cross-referencing the unique serial numbers with the quality deviation, an organization can identify the precise units affected immediately, not entire, generic lots.   

This accuracy is compounded by real-time tracking and monitoring of locations of products (SK4). Upon detecting a quality event, the track-and-trace system immediately returns the last validated location of each impacted serialized product. This critical locational information enables immediate, highly precise quarantine action at individual warehouses or pharmacies, avoiding the overall issuance of alarms.   

Additionally, an integrated drug recall management program (SK2) provides automated notifications for recall start and reporting. When a recall is initiated, the system automatically marks all applicable serial numbers as recalled and can electronically inform downstream partners. This automation significantly reduces the response time. By insuring only non-conforming product removal, track-and-trace is critical to reducing recall extent and patient risk.  

Best Practices for Applying Track-and-Trace to Recalls 

Getting the most out of pharma recalls track and trace solutions means a strategic investment above and beyond regulatory compliance. The best practice number one is implementing serialization and unique IDs across all products—applying the unique identifier not only at the case level but across every saleable unit.   

The most important operational action is the integration of track-and-trace with ERP and QMS solutions. The drug recall management software (SK2), usually the center of the QMS, needs to automatically interface with the serialization database. This way, the recall initiation process smoothly pulls correct location and serial number information, ensuring solid field safety and recall control (SK5).   

To ensure system integrity, firms need to put emphasis on performing periodic audits and data verification of serialization activities. Periodic data integrity testing is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the system under pressure. Lastly, proper training personnel in recall processes with technology is needed. Teams need to perform periodic mock recalls with the integrated platform to test data recovery, communication protocols, and reporting functionality under simulated crisis situations.  

Case Studies / Real-World Examples 

The effect of strong traceability is most effectively proven through the comparison of results.   

A large generics maker, in full conformance to DSCSA traceability (SK3), detected a cross-contamination problem traced back to a single item of manufacturing equipment. Through their product traceability in pharma (SK4) system, they isolated the 3,000 unique serial numbers that had gone through that machine on the day in question. They were able to quarantine 97% of the product remaining in the distribution channel in 72 hours without making a public recall announcement. The key to success lay in the accurate, unit-level pharmaceutical serialization (SK1) data.   

Contrastingly, the case of the delayed recall of a commonly used over-the-counter drug is a famous example of the risks posed by system fragmentation. A foreign material complaint caused a recall, but since the company was depending on disparate, siloed systems, weeks went by as the manufacturer had to manually reconcile shipping and lot data. The resulting delay caused the majority of impacted products to be dispensed, resulting in patient exposure and drastic regulatory fines. This comparison, in turn, emphatically serves to highlight the requirement of DSCSA traceability requirements (SK3): accuracy saves lives and dollars.   

Stat: Source: FDA Enforcement Reports and Industry Analysis. Recalls conducted with integrated, serialized systems are, on average, resolved 40% more quickly than those that depend mostly on manual or batch-level verification techniques, resulting in improved public safety outcomes immediately.  

Benefits of Track-and-Trace Solutions Beyond Recalls 

Although streamlining crisis management is essential, investment in pharma recalls track and trace solutions confers significant strategic benefits across day-to-day operations.   

First, it greatly improves supply chain visibility. The digitized, serialized chain of custody delivers authentic, end-to-end visibility, enabling better inventory management, limiting the risk of product expiration on shelves, and streamlining distribution logistics. Having the precise status of a drug is priceless for operational effectiveness.   

Second, the system is an effective deterrent to lowering counterfeiting and diversion. Any product trying to enter the legitimate supply chain with an altered or recycled serial number is immediately identified and rejected at the verification scan, safeguarding patient health and brand reputation.   

Lastly, technology is core to facilitating overall regulatory compliance. The precise, auditable data trail created by pharmaceutical serialization (SK1) meets pedigree obligations under DSCSA traceability requirements (SK3) and other international mandates. This combined record streamlines reporting and virtually eliminates the risk and complexity of regulatory audits.  

Conclusion 

The investment in deploying integrated pharma recalls track and trace solutions is the pinnacle of twenty-first-century quality assurance. It is the bridge required to transform raw data into actionable intelligence, taking a messy incident and making it a precision process. Through the use of pharmaceutical serialization and powerful drug recall management software (SK2), businesses have the ability to channel unit-level precision. This enables them to streamline the management of recall, guarantee regulatory compliance, and significantly improve patient safety and operational efficiency.   

Your technology must be a shield, not a liability. Qualityze provides a cloud-native, integrated field safety and recall management (SK5) solution that natively integrates your serialization data, providing you with the velocity and precision you require during a crisis.   

Key Takeaways: 

• Precision is Power: Unit-level serialization is necessary for surgical recalls that reduce patient risk and stock loss. 

• Compliance is Integrated: DSCSA traceability requirements (SK3) and recall readiness are consolidated on a single digital platform. 

• Safety is Strategic: The system offers vital protection against counterfeiting as well as maximizing product traceability in pharma (SK4).   

Ready to turn your recall process from a high-risk liability into a show of operational excellence?   

Request a personalized demo of our combined solution today. 

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