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Most companies doing business under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) have come to realize that regulatory requirements aren’t the only ones they must address: Trade partners make their own custom demands, adding complexity on top of the law. The inability to meet these requests can interrupt your ability to move product, and put your business at serious risk. For one wholesale distributor and TraceLink customer, that became clear when they received an unexpected request from a major trade partner earlier this summer.
The partner, a retail pharmacy chain, began requiring the distributor to provide two transaction history details, Transaction Date and Shipment Date. However, DSCSA does not require wholesalers to send that information for product they’ve received directly from a manufacturer, so it wasn’t part of the distributor’s regular transmissions. Concerned with how to meet this demand, the distributor turned to TraceLink. There was plenty at stake: the delivery and availability of a widely dispensed medication and a critical business relationship between supplier and pharmacy.
The Product and Engineering teams at TraceLink came up with a solution, quickly developing a new option in TraceLink’s Product Track software. Now, simply by clicking a checkbox, any wholesale distributor who has received product directly from a manufacturer can send the Transaction Date and Shipment Date downstream.
Thanks to this rapid response, this distributor was able to meet their pharmacy customer’s demand, and business dealings have continued without interruption. If TraceLink had not taken immediate action, the distributor would have failed to comply with their trade partner’s request, jeopardizing the delivery of crucial medication and revenue. Meeting DSCSA requirements is already a considerable challenge—responding to partner demands as well is nearly impossible without an experienced solutions partner like TraceLink to help assess the request and solve the problem.
