Manufacturers of pharmaceutical goods are required to ensure that their medicinal products have a unique serial number. In accordance with current legislation, coding is also required on packaging and often on tablets themselves. Marking must also be legible, of high quality and last throughout the product’s lifetime.
Coding and marking of pharmaceutical products must guarantee the identification of unsafe products by means of traceability. Apart from facilitating their speedy withdrawal from the market, if necessary, they also help in the fight against counterfeit medicines, given the enormous consequences that these can cause to people’s health.
Coding can be carried out on a wide variety of materials including paper, cardboard, glass and plastic, as well as on the product itself (pills or tablets), blister packs, cases, medicine boxes and pallets.