Wholesalers have challenged the multiples to come up with a solution to scanning prescription medicines in pharmacies, ahead of European anti-counterfeiting plans due to come into effect in 2017.

Pharmacy chains should work with wholesalers and IT software suppliers to come up with a working model for scanning medicines across the supply chain, said British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (BAPW) chief executive Martin Sawer.

If pharmacies do not plan for implementation they risk having scanning systems imposed upon them	More news on anti-counterfeiting MHRA must end stalemate to avoid lagging behind EU on counterfeits Counterfeits battle could see POM scanners in pharmacies by 2017 Pharmacy Voice urges MHRA to be tougher on counterfeits MORE NEWS
	Every pharmacy in the UK could have a barcode scanner to identify individual packs of prescription-only medicines by 2017, as part of the European Commission's falsified medicines directive to prevent counterfeit drugs entering the supply chain.

There had been a lot of "huffing and puffing" by the government and the pharmaceutical industry about how the directive should be implemented in the UK and pharmacy groups were missing an opportunity to show leadership in the supply chain, Mr Sawer told the BAPW annual meeting in London on Tuesday (June 18).

"My concern is that all the generics manufacturers, IT systems suppliers and all the pharmacy bodies need to be singing the same tune to make the supply chain safer," he told the conference.

The UK faced a different challenge to other European countries because the NHS could not afford to pay for a medicine verification system and pharmacy needed to make a case for how the directive could be implemented without using public money, he said.

"It would have to be a group of organisations like a big pharmacy chain, an IT software provider, maybe a wholesaler, [that] got together and looked at this problem as a strategic challenge," he told C+D.

Software suppliers had met with the NPA a year ago to discuss piloting a scanning system, but the pharmacy sector first needed to decide how it wanted the system to work, said Ian Taylor, managing director of pharmacy software designers Rx Systems.

"Do you scan at the point of labelling? Who's going to hold the central database? What type of scanners do you need? The sooner we get clarity on what those requirements are going to be the better," he told C+D.

NPA public affairs manager Gareth Jones agreed that implementing a pilot scanning system would be helpful, but said this was difficult while the MHRA and the European Commission continued to send out contradictory signals about whether scanning in pharmacies would go ahead.

"We are better off engaging in plans for implementation rather than leaving it to others to work out the detail and hand community a fait accompli," he told C+D.

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