Global standards provide the foundation for business communications, facilitating the provision of services, movement of products, and information about them across trading partners and borders. Over the past two decades, drug regulatory authorities and the health care industry have been aligning on the adoption of global standards – namely GS1 as the leader in healthcare supply chain standards –to facilitate the identification, data capture, and data sharing required to enable pharmaceutical traceability. This paper explores GLN use cases in the global health context, assesses the challenges and opportunities for implementation, and provides recommendations for ecosystem partners in pursuit of standardized locations supported by robust master data management.
