As India expands QR tracking, pharma industry looks to AI for quality

While expanded traceability aims to curb counterfeit medicines, industry says predictive manufacturing could help reduce NSQ drugs

As India expands the mandatory use of QR codes to track vaccines and certain medicines, industry experts say the country needs a dual-tech approach for its pharmaceutical supply chain: Tracing counterfeits and using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve manufacturing quality.

 

The government’s latest notification expands the QR code mandate beyond the top 300 pharmaceutical brands, bringing additional categories of life-saving medicines under a “track-and-trace framework” intended to improve authenticity and supply-chain transparency. QR-code-based tracking will expand to antimicrobials, anti-cancer medicines, narcotic and psychotropic drugs.

 

Government data shows that tracking has intensified over the past few years. Drug samples tested by regulators increased from 84,874 in 2020-21 to 116,323 in 2024-25. Annual detections of Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) drugs remained around the 3,000-mark, while those of spurious drugs detected declined to 245 in 2024-25 from 424 in 2022-23. Prosecutions by regulators increased from 236 in 2020-21 to 961 in 2024-25.

 

According to GS1 India, the country’s barcode and supply chain standards body, the expanded QR code regime will strengthen the authenticity and traceability of medicines by creating a globally interoperable identification system across the pharmaceutical supply chain.

 

“GS1 India welcomes the Union Health Ministry’s decision to expand the QR code and barcode mandate to additional categories of life-saving medicines. This is a very important move because medicines are traded globally, and India cannot afford systems working in silos. By adopting internationally harmonised GS1 standards, the regulation ensures that product, batch and expiry information is encoded in a universal way,” said S Swaminathan, chief executive officer, GS1 India.

 

Swaminathan said expanding QR-code-based tracking to vaccines, antimicrobials, narcotics and anti-cancer medicines will secure the supply chain by linking barcodes to a verified product registry. Such digital verification builds trust, reduces counterfeits, and aligns India with global pharmaceutical standards.

 

While QR codes address the challenge of medicine authenticity and traceability, some industry executives argue that tackling NSQ drugs requires greater focus on manufacturing processes.

 

Shashwat S Tripathi, founder of EurVeda.co, an AI-focused platform to improve pharmaceutical manufacturing, said laboratory testing spots quality failures only after a batch is ready. AI can help manufacturers predict process deviations during production by analysing parameters, such as blending time, environmental conditions and equipment performance, allowing corrective action before a batch falls outside quality specifications.

 

Tripathi argued that AI can enhance existing good manufacturing practices by supporting process validation, environmental monitoring and root-cause analysis. He urged the industry to shift from reactive end-product testing to predictive manufacturing, where potential flaws are caught during production rather than after a batch is complete.

 

The two technologies, experts recommend, address different parts of India’s pharmaceutical quality ecosystem. While QR codes secure the authenticity of medicines moving through the supply chain, AI-based manufacturing reduces quality failures before products leave the factory.