An open ecosystem supporting the pharmaceutical industry to comply with DSCSA requirements using innovative solutions developed in cross-industry pilots
OCI supports solutions that utilize verifiable credentials and digital wallets as well as establishes industry conformance guidelines.
Who We Are
The Open Credentialing Initiative (OCI) was born out of the DSCSA Authorized Trading Partner Pilot, which successfully demonstrated the use of open standards, W3C-specified Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and global protocols, GS1 Messaging, to establish Authorized Trading Partner (ATP) status for trading partners involved in automated verification for saleable returns.
Following the pilot’s successful conclusion in February 2021, OCI realized the need for further industry collaborations to support adopting companies, shepherd efforts in standardization and governance and work with other DSCSA initiatives.
The initiative is an incubator project of the Center for Supply Chain Studies (C4SCS), which brought together companies representing all US pharmaceutical supply chain segments, trading partners, solution providers, and standards organizations to support the industry in 2023 DSCSA compliance.
OCI establishes and maintains technical governance, specifications and guidelines in an open, trusted environment that:
Advances the implementation of VCs for long-term success
Defines conformance and interoperability criteria
Leverages collaboration among standard organizations
Provides a place for others to learn and adopt the architecture
Explores further credential-based use cases
How you can participate
OCI offers various opportunities for participation from within and outside our membership.
Non-members can peruse and use our published material, provide feedback and technical contributions, participate in open calls, act as advisors, and help shape our work, in particular our Emerging Initiatives and Programs. Thus, if you do not want to commit to a membership, you can still help us chart the way forward. It is crucial for OCI to gain insights from industry professionals and experts, since we aim to develop solutions that cater to your needs.
On top of all this, members can participate in member-only activities, vote on decisions and facilitate OCI operations.
How Does OCI Support the Industry?
Every OCI member is committed to adopting and supporting OCI architecture, guidelines, and trust frameworks to support industry collaboration.
Become Part of the Ecosystem
The ecosystem is open to Trading Partners, Solution Providers, Associations, Standards Bodies and others interested in contributing to future enhancements of the architecture and use cases.
Interested in becoming part of the ecosystem? Drop us an email.
OCI Ecosystem
-
Credential Issuer
A Credential Issuer verifies enterprise identity and license information before issuing Verifiable Credentials to Trading Partners. OCI-conformant Credential Issuers ensure that only trusted and compliant Trading Partners can act as ATP.
-
Digital Wallet Provider
A Digital Wallet Provider provides software for Trading Partners and Credential Service Providers to manage enterprise identities and verifiable credentials in a digital wallet. Digital wallets are the backbone of the decentralized identity and credentialing architecture of the OCI.
-
Trading Partner
Pharmaceutical supply chain actors like manufacturers, wholesalers, repackagers, third-party logistics providers and dispensers. All entities falling under the DSCSA definition can use credentialing to support compliance with Authorized Trading Partner requirements.
-
Service Provider
Software companies that offer products for verification routing, track and trace or other data management requirements of Trading Partners. OCI supports Service Providers with documentation and design principles that enable a lean and cost-efficient integration of credentialing.