United Arab Emirates (UAE) – including Dubai

v. 28 – Q4 2023

v.28 Q4 2023 update: 2 circulars from MOHAP regarding Aggregation and upload to Tatmeen with potential impact on MAH’s reporting set-up; Updated e-PIL information.

Market Executive Summary As part of a wide scope to provide comprehensive and intelligent solutions in the management of pharmaceuticals and drug dispensations, traceability of medicines will be established, based on GS1 Standards. The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) made it obligatory for all pharmaceutical companies, agents and suppliers to supply pharmaceuticals with a barcode based on the GS1 Standards and 2D Data Matrix.

The United Arab Emirate is therefore implementing the “Tatmeen” (“reassure”) system (https://tatmeen.ae/), in collaboration with Smart Dubai. Tatmeen introduces serialisation / traceability for pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and blood products. Scope is traceabilty from manufacture/ import to point of dispense. Tatmeen is positioned to be a “state-of-the-art fully automated paperless drugs and medical supplies management system” and part of the drive by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) to position itself as a regional leader.

Tatmeen will be integrated with Salam, the DHA’s electronic medical record system and will provide the electronic catalogue and availability of medical items. Tatmeen It also works alongside the Tarmeez (“encoding”) system that is geared towards managing the flows for inpatient and inventory and connecting that data to the EMR.

The barcoding guidance in support of the Tatmeen roll-out is issued by the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP). Furthermore, MAH/brand owner (or representatives) are required to upload the relevant product master data on GS1 UAE’s platform (BrandSync).

Key Dates
  • July 14, 2021: Official publication of the legislative decree, setting out the key milestones:
    • Serialization of secondary packs and master data uploaded December 31, 2021
    • December 13, 2022: (18 months after publication of decree):
      • Serial number reporting
      • Aggregation
      • All stakeholders to be identified by GLN
  • March 31, 2021: Uploading the data on GS1 UAE portal
  • September 2019: Tamper-Evident Packaging required
  • January 2018: product/batch/lot coding required by certain customers

<-- Return to Countries