Drug and medical device manufacturers are often faced with difficult — and sometimes unexpected — challenges in sorting out the country of origin for their products, which are often sourced, processed and manufactured in multiple countries.

One would think it would be easy to answer the question, “What is a pharmaceutical product’s ‘country of origin’?” Unfortunately, as Jeffrey Orenstein and Lorraine Campos point out in “Origin of the Pieces: How to Determine a Pharmaceutical Product’s ‘Country of Origin,’” the answer to this question is not as simple as many would think – and the correct answer can depend on who is asking. Jeff and Lorraine’s article is published in the Spring 2014 edition of the Public Contract Law Journal.