Counterfeit drugs are the dirty little secret in the pharmaceutical industry, and the continued and (unfortunately) growing distribution of them not only hurts the industry as a whole, but can certainly harm unsuspecting patients who need what they think are the right drugs to help them fight off disease.
In an attempt to keep counterfeit drugs from entering the supply chain, IBM and AmerisourceBergen have launched a tracking program that leverages RFID technology. According to the companies, the new system will seal the supply chain and keep counterfeiters out who would normally find gaps iin order to place their lower-standard drugs into the process.
Will this be enough? Probably not, but this is the type of application that RFID is well-suited for--tracking of materials in a supply chain. The key is to make sure the people running the process are fully aware of how the system should work, and where to look if any discrepancies should occur.
1. I'm a little more skeptical about this announcement. See my post from the RFID conference:
http://drugchannels.blogspot.com/2006/11/fda-on-pdma.html
Adam
Posted at 4:02PM on Nov 14th 2006 by Adam J. Fein