Pharmaceutical and Medical

Secure RFID Technology Foils Counterfeiters

Over the past few years, the problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals has become more widespread as the methods of counterfeiters grow more sophisticated. Fueling the threat is the fact that drugs change hands multiple times as they move through a complex global supply chain. The challenge to ensure that consumers are receiving what they expect at the pharmacy counter requires a new level of supply-chain monitoring and management on the front end.

RFID technology is a key component of the next generation solution because it is secure, not easily replicated and can establish a product pedigree at the item level that does not necessarily require a centralized infrastructure to be effective. Federal and state pharmaceutical regulations have put already recognized RFID as a key technology at the forefront of the battle against drug counterfeiting. As regulations continue to develop, it is important for supply chain members to choose comprehensive, flexible solutions from experienced vendors.

Texas Instruments' (TI) RFID products supply the technology base for the most flexible and sophisticated systems available to the pharmaceutical supply chain. TI is the only semiconductor company that delivers the highest level of quality by maintaining control of the entire design and manufacturing process for RFID chips and inlay antennas.

EPCglobal Member Creating Standards and Infrastructure for Use with RFid Capabilities

TI is highly involved as a member of EPCglobal in the efforts to create standards and infrastructure to support item level authentication, and track and trace capabilities with RFID. With RFID, patients can be confident that they are receiving the correct medicine.

This can be accomplished in one of two ways or both:

• ePedigree for Chain-of-Custody - Automatically creating an electronic pedigree is uniquely possible through the deployment of RFID. Other technologies, such as two-dimensional barcode fall short and cannot accomplish what RFID can. RFID tagged products can be read without line of site, so that for example, seventy-two pharmaceutical bottles inside of a case can be individually read and recorded as they move through the supply chain.

• Package Authentication - This method makes it extremely difficult to counterfeit the data on RFID tags, because this data acts as an electronic security marker to automatically authenticate genuine product packaging.

Fast, Secure Piloting and Deployment for Authentication & Track and Trace Applications

With more than 16 years experience and numerous worldwide deployments in a variety of form factors, TI can deliver fast, secure piloting and deployment for pharmaceutical authentication and track and trace applications.

Security features include:

• PKI Encryption - Counterfeiting is a major concern in the pharmaceutical industry. Using PKI encryption, TI’s RFID chips can authenticate a package with only the encrypted information on the chip.
• NDC Encryption or Decommissioning - The National Drug Code product information on a medication package can be encrypted or securely removed by persons with the proper security clearances prior to being given to a patient.
• Factory-locked Code - Because TI controls its entire manufacturing process, including chip and antenna, it can accommodate customized information to be securely embedded in the chip when specified by the user.