Author: Ceila Santos

Source: Decision Report - São Paulo / SP - HEALTH - 13/08/2010

There is no escaping the analogy to the mandatory Electronic Invoice when it comes to Drug Tracking. The difference, however, is not only in the scope of the value chain that starts in production until the sale of the drug to the final consumer, including dispensing and medical, dental and veterinary prescription.

Rodrigo Klein, director of technology at Interfarma, explains that the tracking system is somewhat more complex than the NF-e, because it is not just about messaging, or data transmission, but also the need to manage the information collected and integrate it to other systems.

“From a business point of view, this information represents an important source that can be used for BI (Business Intelligence)”, he adds. Klein was responsible for the development of the system, called Total Fleck, used in the Etco pilot project with the seven industries.

He explains that the system will allow a more refined control by the industry and the data can be reversed in competitive intelligence. This is also the vision of Daniel Bio, business development manager at SAP, who also highlights the option for the sector to achieve a return on investment when it adopts a solution that not only targets the regulatory aspect, but also the managerial one.

“Most companies can simply meet the requirement without obtaining anything managerial in this process or integrate this solution into the back office and have a management from the entry of the raw material to the exit of the medication. The advantage is to insert cubes to obtain management reports with friendly interfaces for this process ”, explains Bio.

Márcio Moreti, Active's managing partner, already has a more pragmatic view on mandatory: “It has become a law, it has to be fulfilled because otherwise it is out of the game. We will contribute a lot to the industry because we know how to validate according to the requirements of the sector. And this is a business for a specialist ”.

Given this context, there is no doubt that solutions will not be lacking to meet the new demand of the pharmaceutical industry. And, in detail, the technology has been available for some years since this time Brazil is not the world vanguard as in the case of NF-e. “SAP delayed delivery of the solution for Electronic Invoice a little bit because it required development, but in the case of drug tracking, the company already serves the entire world”, justifies Bio.

Business model

Klein has no doubt that the SaaS (Software as a Service) proposal could be an alternative for many industries, regardless of the size of the company. “The pilot project represented a little the service model because the solution was hosted at Diveo”, he says.

It is worth mentioning that the modality was a common bet that expanded the NF-e offer. On the other hand, many companies used the service only to meet the deadline and plan the migration for messaging from the SAP management system due to the cost of maintaining the platform. Bio believes that this trajectory can be replicated in the case of Drug Tracking, especially for global customers.

Moreti warns that Active will not only act as a software provider, but also as a service provider specialized in validation. “More than 60% of the medicines go through Active software on the Brazilian factory floor and 80% of our customers use SAP. The software is just a piece of the validation necessary to comply with regulatory requirements ”, he explains.

Active calculates a 55% growth for 2009, mainly due to the projects related to the validation of systems in the pharmaceutical industry and the update of the installed base with the new version of the Active solution, called Evolutio. For 2010, the company should register growth of around 60% with projects related to the traceability of medicines. SAP also aims to grow in this segment this year.

There is no doubt that the fight is fierce in the sale of software and involves several suppliers, both specialized and multinational as well as integrators. The software industry, however, will need to deal with the interoperability of collector manufacturers, barcode scanners, and other industrial automation equipment.

This vein, by the way, makes up the main manufacturers of Drug Tracking. They will sustain the operational and cultural challenges of the shop floor environments, where not only the batches for identification will be controlled, but also each drug. It is good to remember that the pharmaceutical rhythm works with hundreds of boxes per minute and this efficiency can only be improved. Never, reduced.