China eCode or GS1 Encoding? Weighing the Benefits and Risks

I mentioned before that with the new version of China regulations, the law has provided two options. The traceability report structure does support both formats.
TraceLink supports both formats. We have used the eCode for the previous version of our China solution. Since we have a rather extensive set of solutions for other countries, we handle GS1 standards there as well. I want you to understand what the options are, but also there are some implications there.

Going back to the first version, we had the eCode. That is a 1D or linear barcode that was put on each product. It's proprietary, not aligned with GS1 standards. There was a lot of work between GS1 and industry with China and the NMPA, to allow the GS1 standard. Now, many companies prefer GS1 because of the global harmonization. As I said, manufacturers are using GS1 and other regimes. Many of their lines and hardware are tooled for using GS1. One consideration for China is whether your downstream trade partners—wholesalers, pharmacies, and hospitals—would be able to read the GS1 codes.

In addition, we've learned that at that third tier, where you're selecting your traceability provider, some providers offer support for just one of these coding schemes. You, as a company, need to decide. But you don't need to make one blanket decision. You can make a decision per product on how you want to encode them. I'd say the tier-three selection is tied also to your coding strategy, so just keep that in mind as you're selecting a provider.

Finally, there are some questions as to whether, if you start with one code—let's say for this December deadline—if you would be stuck using it, or if that coding is on a per batch level. We're waiting for some clarification from the NPMA on that. Not all questions on coding have been answered, but I hope to give you at least a flavor and some awareness of the discussion.