v. 28 – Q4 2023
| Market Executive Summary |
There are labelling requirements issued by the Hong Kong Health Authority, Drug Office, that specify barcodes. Any such requirements for Hong Kong are driven by the Hong Kong Hospital Authority that has been following a roadmap for the identification for pharmaceutical products since 2013. This was originally at the level of the logistics Unit only, but has recently been extended to cover tracking at the sales pack level (Briefing to Pharmaceutical Suppliers & Manufacturers, Incorporating Unique Identifier Requirement into Drug Procurement Tender” issued by the Hong Kong Hospital Authority on 27 March 2023). The aim of this requirement is “To enable the tracking and tracing of medicines” and “To facilitate electronic identification and verification”. Therefore all Pharmaceutical Products subject to future Hospital Authority tenders “shall incorporate the 2D DataMatrix to facilitate these initiatives…The barcode will aid the transfer of information along the supply chain and aid shelf life management up to and including the point of dispense.” The detail of the requirement is that “The package of sales pack of all pharmaceutical products supplied to HA should carry a GS1 DataMatrix with at least 1) Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), 2) Batch or Lot number and 3) Expiration Date/ Best Before Date.” |
| Key Dates |
2013 Batch-coding from 2023 onwards |