RFID  and EPC help combat counterfeit medicinal products

In mid-2007, officials in Panama discovered traces of a poisonous ingredient used in antifreeze in 6,000 tubes of toothpaste. A few weeks later, contaminated counterfeit toothpaste was also found in discount stores in the United States and also in Spain, where it was being distributed in the form of free samples. If RFID and EPC technology had been used on the toothpaste packaging, officials could have responded more quickly to the danger.

Many companies are now using RFID to authenticate medicines and other products. This improves patient safety and reduces the threat of counterfeiting.

A group of Scandinavian companies, for example, has tested the technology for tracking and authenticating a medicine that helps prevent and treat blood clots. The group placed RFID tags on the bottom of paper cartons for individual bottles of pills and encoded each RFID tag with a unique serial number and the medicine’s expiration date. When it was time to ship cases of the medicine, a pharmaceutical company used an RFID reader to identify each case and record where each batch was headed. On arrival at the wholesaler, the tags were read again.

If counterfeit versions of the medicine were discovered, or if the medication had been tampered with, the information collected by these companies would have been invaluable for law enforcement and health officers.

In other examples, wholesalers, re-packagers and pharmacy distribution centres can check incoming goods for authenticity via the EPC, and pharmacies and retailers receive digital documentation on the origin of RFID-tagged drugs. Later, when the EPCglobal Network and the EPC Information Services are fully adopted, pharmacists will be able to perform their own product authentication checks.

In future, it is likely that after you bring your pills home from the pharmacy, you will be able to enter a product ID number on a special website to confirm your medication’s origin. So before you pop that pill you will have more reasons to believe that it’s authentic and safe!