Press ReleaseSpherity and Legisym win 2023 HDA Distribution Management Award
New York, March 13, 2023
Spherity and Legisym were honored with the 2023 HDA Distribution Management Award (DMA) in recognition of the companies' joint work on a credentialing solution for the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) Authorized Trading Partner (ATP) authentication. The award, presented at the 2023 Distribution Management Conference and Expo in Indianapolis, recognizes HDA member companies’ efforts to enhance the healthcare supply chain's efficiency, effectiveness, and safety through innovative and successful trading partner initiatives.
By November 27, 2023, the DSCSA comes into full force. With respect to product identifier (PI) verifications, it suggests that pharmaceutical supply chain actors should ideally exchange drug sensitive data exclusively with Authorized Trading Partners (ATPs). This implies that every trading partner should have the ability to check another trading partner’s authorized status to ensure that only legitimate actors are part of the supply chain. Using Spherity’s enterprise identity solutions and Legisym’s regulatory compliance expertise, the close partnership developed a production-ready credentialing solution that enables automated ATP checks in Verification Router Service (VRS)-enabled product verifications.
Receiving the award, Georg Jürgens, Manager Industry Solutions at Spherity, stated, “Developing a solution that increases healthcare supply chain security in a cross-industry pilot has been an incredible journey. With an open and innovative mindset, the pilot group established foundations for an open and interoperable architecture that is adopted across the industry to support the protection of patient health.”
The credentialing solution came out of a classic technological innovation pilot in April 2020 conducted by Spherity and Legisym together with the Center for Supply Chain Studies, rfxcel, SAP, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and AmerisourceBergen. The work was then further refined through the non-profit Open Credentialing Initiative (OCI) since its foundation in April 2021, which was spearheaded by the Spherity-Legisym partnership. In 2022, the solution achieved commercial readiness and OCI matured its architectural and governance frameworks. Thus, the innovation has been threefold — at technological, compliance, and governance level.
In addition to the growth of the OCI ecosystem, the inclusion of credentials into GS1’s Lightweight Messaging Standard and PDG’s Foundational Blueprint have been major milestones leading up to this award.
“Congratulations to everyone at OCI for their commitment and collaboration on establishing this framework. Since its inception, our vision was to not create an isolated solution but to allow for industry-wide interoperability and adoption through an open standardized approach that anyone can participate in. It’s great seeing the OCI ecosystem being recognized and growing.” said David Kessler, President and Co-Owner at Legisym.
To learn more about the innovation behind the credentialing solution for DSCSA compliance with ATP requirements, read our blog article, visit caro.vc or contact Spherity at [email protected] and Legisym at [email protected].
To learn more about the HDA Distribution Management Award, visit the link.
About HDA
The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) represents primary pharmaceutical distributors — the vital link between the nation’s pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacies, hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics and others nationwide. Since 1876, HDA has helped members navigate regulations and innovations to get the right medicines to the right patients at the right time, safely and efficiently. The HDA Research Foundation, HDA’s nonprofit charitable foundation, serves the healthcare industry by providing research and education focused on priority healthcare supply chain issues.
About Spherity
Spherity is a German software provider bringing secure and decentralized identity management solutions to enterprises, machines, products, data and even algorithms. Spherity provides the enabling technology to digitalize and automate compliance processes in highly regulated technical sectors. Spherity’s products empower cybersecurity, efficiency and data interoperability among digital value chains. Spherity is certified according to the information security standard ISO 27001.
About Legisym, LLC
For over a decade, Legisym, LLC has successfully provided the pharmaceutical industry with affordable and effective regulatory compliance technologies. In early 2020, driven by the 2023 authorized trading partner (ATP) requirements, Legisym began leveraging their existing Controlled Substance Ordering System (CSOS) and license verification technologies and experience, to engage as a credential issuer. By performing thorough credential issuer due diligence processes, first to establish a root of trust, Legisym promotes confidence in the trading partner’s digital identity prior to the issuance of all ATP credentials.