Axway and Navitas partner for DSCSA and traceability implementations

Two longtime players in pharma traceability efforts, Axway and Navitas, a business unit of TAKE Solutions, are partnering to provide a fuller software offering for ongoing traceaibility efforts in pharma supply chains. In the US, this will mean implementations to meet the requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), whose next deadline is looming in November 2017. Globally, both companies (whose parents are in France for Axway and India for Navitas) are also gearing up for systems integration work in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Axway’s Track and Trace, a tailored version of its Axway 5 for managing trading-partner interactions, will be the basic platform; Navitas provides integration services and both on-premise and hosted implementations. “This is both a technology and consulting/services partnership,” says Joanna Gorovoy, product marketing director at Axway. “This will be especially helpful for smaller or mid-market firms in the pharma supply chain.”

Both companies bring an interesting mix of related capabilities to traceability initiatives. Navitas, TAKE Solutions’ branding of its existing life-sciences IT support services in 2015, also provides pharmacovigilance and regulatory-compliance reporting capabilities; another business unit, TAKE Supply Chain, goes back to the acquisition of ClearOrbit, an RFID and related IT development company that was a player in the mid-2000s when RFID was looked on as the enabling technology for pharma traceability. For its part, Axway recently acquired Appcelerator, a leading provider of software for enabling mobile applications--and mobile solutions are one of the use cases “that we’ve talked about with pharma clients,” says Gorovoy. “The potential of having a consumer authenticate product themselves through a mobile app, or to receive medication guidance, is of interest to pharma.”