In the world of human health, the increased call for establishing a clear and traceable pedigree for pharmaceutical supply chain had driven the US government to take up legislation. Hotly debated by the California Board of Pharmacy and several times delayed, the issue of serialising medications has now been put into law by the federal government, making the issue unavoidable. As serialisation is one part packaging process, one part IT data management, Justin Schroeder of Packaging Coordinators Inc (PCI) explains what the handling of codes means to the process of successful serialisation and establishing a foundation for securing the supply chain.