NDC COORDINATION AND IMPLEMENTATION FORUM
For Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
Your team can get your internal NDC systems right. They can't get your wholesalers, your pharmacies, your vendors, and your regulators to align with it.
FDA's 12-digit NDC format takes effect in 2033, and every manufacturer will need downstream trading partners to resolve the new code correctly. The NDC Forum is where manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, payers, and more coordinate readiness across the full chain, not just within one company.
The Challenge
You control the NDC. But you don't control how it is used next.
Every 12-digit code you assign has to survive a journey through wholesaler ordering systems, pharmacy dispensing platforms, payer adjudication engines, and rebate and chargeback calculations you don't operate. If any one of those downstream systems handles the NDC differently than you expect, the consequences land on you: rejected orders, chargeback disputes, delayed reimbursement, and products that can't be matched to the contracts covering them.
This transition can't be managed on your own by only the vendors you use. It touches reimbursement, PBM adjudication, and clinical systems no single manufacturer controls.
Your labeling and SPL submission timelines are yours to control, but they're only step one
Downstream trading partners will each interpret dual-format data differently unless expectations are aligned in advance
Rebate and chargeback systems depend on exact NDC matching; a mismatch is a disputed payment
The transition window (2033–2036) requires you to support both formats simultaneously, indefinitely, until every partner is ready, not just until you are
How the Forum Helps
See downstream expectations before you finalize your approach. Understand what wholesalers, pharmacies, and payers actually need from your barcodes and data, not what you assume they need.
Learn from manufacturer peers in real time. Compare implementation timelines and approaches with other manufacturers instead of guessing in isolation.
Get ahead of standards decisions. Track NCPDP, GS1, and HIPAA-standards developments as they happen, through a forum built to translate standards work into what it means for your systems.
Help set the terms, not just react to them. Participate in Strike Forces shaping barcode strategy and testing models before they're finalized.
Why Manufacturers Can't Solve This Alone
Every manufacturer needs a labeling and data-remediation plan, whether that's built internally, through a systems integrator, or through your existing regulatory-affairs vendor. That plan answers the first half of the question.
A systems or labeling partner can help you submit compliant SPL data and get your barcode right. They can't confirm that the wholesaler ordering your product, the pharmacy dispensing it, and the payer adjudicating it will all resolve your new 12-digit NDC correctly on their end.
A single pilot with one trading partner proves the concept can work. It doesn't prove your full trading-partner network is synchronized and ready.
The manufacturers best positioned by 2033 won't be the ones with the cleanest internal labeling project. They'll be the ones who knew, ahead of time, exactly which downstream partners were and weren't ready.
The Forum is where manufacturers get visibility into downstream readiness across the full trading-partner network, not just proof that a labeling change technically works.
The decisions you make now about labeling, data, and packaging will ripple through every downstream partner you have. Make them with visibility into what those partners actually need.
Get Involved
Organizational Membership
Annual Membership
$5,000
per organization
Unlimited participants from your organization
Access to all quarterly forums, strike forces, and other events
Full access to tools, outputs, and shared resources
Per-Participant Access
Virtual
Quarterly Forums
$399
per person
In-Person
Forums
TBD
per person
Attend quarterly forums on a per-person basis, ideal for organizations exploring participation before committing to full membership.
2026 Forum Dates:
September 23
December 8-9
Strike force participation available to organizational members only.