Pfizer (Global): Using barcodes to support efficient clinical trials

Pfizer has introduced a single GS1 standard barcode to all its clinical trial products. This is helping those at Pfizer’s packaging and distribution centres to ensure the right products go to the right sites in the right quantities – and providing a base for greater use of barcode scanning.

To run a clinical trial for a potential new medicine is to confront a challenging and very precise distribution process. Ensuring every healthcare site involved in the trial receives the right products for the right patients – including placebos, or perhaps several different doses of the active ingredient being investigated – is complicated. There is then the further issue of clinicians being certain that the right patient is being administered the right product.

Getting all this correct is crucial to successfully running trials, which are in turn crucial to testing new medicines which could improve treatment options for patients. A clinical trial is a highly controlled environment, and an incorrect shipment or the wrong drug going to the wrong patient could ultimately impact the integrity of outcomes and patient safety.