From: Andersson, Bjorn [BAndersson@CDOtech.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 12:29 PM
To: 'fdadockets@oc.fda.gov'
Cc: Rust, Eric
Subject: Bar Code Label for Human Drug Products and Blood; Proposed Rule
- Comment

As a system integrator/developer I have a comment on the lack of
standardization of the barcode content for drug labeling.  Unless there is a
standard specifying that data identifiers be used in the barcode, or that
the NDC information is always first 'n' characters of the barcode (only
relevant if the NDC length is static), it becomes difficult for the software
to parse the decoded bar code string to obtain the NDC number from barcodes
including additional information.  There must be some standard that allows
the NDC to be reliably decoded from the bar codes supplied by various
manufacturers potentially containing information in addition to the NDC.

Regards,

Bjorn Andersson

CDO Technologies, Inc.
Dayton, OH