The Kingdom of Bahrain’s National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) believes that the global standards for automatic identification provide an opportunity to make the healthcare supply chain safer as well as more efficient.

The NHRA is adopting and mandating the use of GS1 Data Matrix on the packaging of pharmaceutical products. All products must be compliant with this new regulation by December 31, 2019.

A national traceability hub NHRA-MVC Traceability Hub will be established with MAHs to register by January 1, 2021.

• October 1, 2021: All MAHs to be fully certified
• September 1, 2021: Aggregation requirements compliance date
• January 1, 2021: All MAHs to be registered in the NHRA-MVC Traceability Hub
• January 1, 2020: No Medicine will be imported to Bahrain unless master data has been uploaded on the BrandSync Portal.
• December 31, 2019: 2D DM with Item-level serialisation required for certain product categories
• July 31, 2018: Provision of master data to National Product Catalogue, operated by GS1 UAE: GS1 UAE’s Portal (known as BrandSync) for all existing and new products supplied to the NHRA. BrandSync will be the single source of information for all product master data supplied to the NHRA. (https://brandsync.secure.force.com/BSForm/)