The Council of Europe (CoE) and its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) have launched eTACT, an IT-based traceability service that will allow patients to check the authenticity of their medicines using smartphones or the internet.

Part of the CoE’s global strategy to counter fake drugs, eTACT is a publicly governed service which covers all medicines in the legal supply chain and will trace drugs’ origins through existing national systems. The technology will be open to the 36 member states of the European Pharmacopoeia Commission and beyond.

EDQM organized a workshop in late January for stakeholders, regulatory authorities and patient organizations to use and discuss the technology. The International Alliance of Patients' Organizations specifically welcomed the EDQM’s initiative to open the service to patients and underlined the importance of value to patients versus costs.

Consultations, technical workshops and a series of webinars are to be organized in the coming months to help users understand the project and to gather ideas to create an optimum traceability environment for medicines.