Is Pharma Compliance Enough? Experts Challenge the Industry to Rethink Drug Traceability in 2026

As counterfeit activity grows increasingly sophisticated, a new expert opinion paper is asking a question the pharma industry can no longer avoid: does regulatory compliance actually guarantee drug safety?

Released in 2026, Beyond Compliance: Rethinking Drug Safety & Traceability brings together two prominent voices — Dr. Avi Chaudhuri, Founder of The Kulinda Consortium and a two-decade veteran of global anti-counterfeiting efforts, and Abiram Vijayakumar, Co-Founder of AltiusHub and a specialist in enterprise-scale digital transformation — to examine where current traceability frameworks fall short.

The paper draws a critical distinction between tracking the movement of drugs and genuinely verifying their identity — a gap that serialization mandates alone do not close. It explores how counterfeit methods have outpaced many existing safeguards, and why meeting compliance deadlines does not equal real-world supply chain integrity.

Key themes include the ownership and interoperability of traceability data, the evolving sophistication of counterfeit threats, and the leadership decisions that will define the next phase of drug safety infrastructure. The discussion is specifically designed for supply chain leaders, CIOs, packaging heads, and plant operations managers navigating high-stakes traceability decisions.

With DSCSA enforcement now a reality and global serialization mandates tightening, the paper argues that compliance is the floor — not the ceiling — of patient protection.

For pharma leaders looking to move beyond checkbox compliance toward genuine supply chain resilience, this is a conversation worth having.