New safety measures are being introduced to better protect patients against counterfeit medicines.
The upgraded system comes into effect across Europe from today and will see packs carry greater tamper-proof measures.
It follows concerns over the legitimacy of medicines given to patients in other countries, as well as the increasing number of medicine sales online - some from unregulated suppliers.
General Manager of the Irish Medicines Verifications Organisation, Leonie Clarke, said: "A special bar code that will appear on packs plus an anti-tamper device of the text of whether or not the pack has been interfered with.
"What will happen is the bar code will be scanned by the pharmacist and checked against a central database and it will allow them to be sure it is a genuine pack."
