Under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol, which is part of the Brexit deal, Northern Ireland has remained in the EU’s single market for goods. Since January 2021, the protocol has mandated that Northern Ireland must follow EU medicine regulations.

Following updated guidance from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) earlier this month, the medicines regulator has announced that UK licensing of medicines will be split into the following regional categories:

UK – including both Great Britain and Northern Ireland
GB – Great Britain ONLY and excluding Northern Ireland-only products
NI – Northern Ireland only and excluding Great Britain-only products.

In light of this, C+D Data has developed one unique PIP code per unique product/medicine listing, to be used across the UK supply chain to facilitate unique identification, ordering, wholesale, distribution, and returns. 

Northern Ireland and Great Britain PIP codes will be allocated and verified by C+D Data’s 5-series PIP-codes, to ensure that the medicines data underpinning the UK supply chain from the manufacturer all the way through to the patient remains accurate, supporting the safe and accurate distribution of medicines.

Making the supply chain more effective

Product director Pippa Chadfield said: “C+D Data’s experienced team has been in regular contact with key stakeholders from across the supply chain for months to understand the challenges and impact of the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol on medicines supply.

“When guidance was shared by the MHRA recently, we were able to put a solution in place quickly that meets the needs of the market across the entire UK supply chain, with as little disruption as possible.”

“Everyone playing their part”

Explaining the benefits of the new service, C+D Data director Devi Patel said: “C+D has adapted the PIP code process to allow manufacturers to continue to list, identify, order and/or distribute products into Northern Ireland – secure in the knowledge that the data underpinning the supply chain is accurate, cleansed and curated and distributed across the market daily.

“This new solution aims to make the UK supply chain more efficient and effective, and we ask each party involved to play a part,” Ms Patel added.

Wholesalers are asked not to provide manufacturers with codes from their “own user code blocks”, as series 6,7 and 8 codes will not be valid for Great Britain and Northern Ireland products.

Meanwhile manufacturers are asked to come direct to the C+D Data entry portal with the following product information: product description, product region, PL and GTIN.

Pharmacy teams will be able to continue to order products as they always have done, and products will be easily identifiable as either a Northern Ireland or Great Britain product by the additional “NI” or “GB” suffix in the product description.

Listing products with C+D Data remains a free service and follows the same process. For any additional information, please contact [email protected].