eCAP tracking tool relaunched to fight fake drugs
smart cap, originally designed for drug trial compliance
monitoring, is being re-launched as an anti-counterfeiting tool.
Information Mediary Corporation (IMC) is looking to market their eCAP RFID technology to pharmaceutical companies to use in the "track and trace," of consumer drug bottles.
"We've always wanted to keep our minds on a bigger market," said James Neilson, IMC's product manager.
The eCAP is not yet used by pharmaceutical brand owners for this application, however, Neilson believes that there is potential for commercialisation in this market to happen, especially as the cost of RFID is now coming down.
Counterfeit pharmaceuticals is one of the most critical issues facing the pharmaceutical industry today. The World Health Organization estimates that 5-8 per cent of worldwide trade in pharmaceuticals is counterfeit.
Of great concern is that many counterfeit pharmaceutical products come from illegal operations with poor controls and may contain ingredients that could be harmful.
A recent report released by The Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest, projected counterfeit drug sales to reach $75 billion (€63 billion) in 2010, a 92 per cent increase from 2005.
The report estimates counterfeit drug sales will grow 13 per cent a year through to 2010, compared to just 7.5 per cent estimated annual growth for global pharmaceutical commerce.
Liability issues, consumer confidence, and brand erosion costs are driving pharmaceutical manufacturers to adopt new technologies to combat this growing global problem.
IMC has already commercialised its eCAP medication bottle for the pharmaceutical research market. It was developed so that researchers could tracks medication usage without active patient input.
The product consists of an RFID "smart tag" embedded into a standard medication bottle cap, which records the time at which the bottle is opened by the patient to remove their prescribed dose, thus logging the patient's medication use.
However, the same technology can be used as a very precise track and trace device.
At the time of shipping, the eCAP bottle is programmed with information, such as medication identification and certification code, tablet count, manufacturer and intended destination along with a disarm code.
At the destination the entire initial information, plus any tampering and opening events, which occurred during transportation, can be viewed and analysed using the eCAP CertiScan wireless RFID scanner and computer software. A blinking LED provides an immediate visual indication of unauthorized openings during transport.
RFID tags are tiny computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be affixed to physical objects. The RFID contains an electronic product codes (EPC) with sufficient capacity to provide unique identifiers for all items produced worldwide.
The tracking and data coding enabled by RFID can provide pharmaceutical manufacturers with a powerful tool to combat product counterfeiting and product diversion and customers will be able to ensure product integrity from the manufacturers.
According to many of its proponents, RFID promises to save billions and radically change the way the supply chain works.
IMC is a Canadian company that offers custom designed RFID sensors (Class 3 EPC RFID tags), RFID readers, and innovations in printed electronics.
