A pioneering approach to tackling the growing worldwide problem of counterfeit drugs could see RFID (radio frequency identification) tags being included on packaging to authenticate products at the point of dispensing.
PA Consulting Group, the UK management and technology consultancy, is running a pilot in the UK in the second half of the year involving a number of the top pharmaceutical companies.
In the future, using RFID technology in this way will give consumers greater confidence about the authenticity of the products they buy.
"If I can buy two products which do the same thing, and one has been authenticated and the other hasn't, that's going to drive me to choose the one that's authenticated," says Bruce Tindale, PA's chief executive.
Drug manufacturers would have greater protection against potentially crippling lawsuits caused by counterfeit drugs in the supply chain.
Mr Tindale suggests they might even be able to use "cheap and cheerful" packaging that does not require a range of complex anti-counterfeiting measures - such as holograms and special inks - that counterfeiters can often reproduce quickly.
PA's project is unusual as it bypasses the supply chain between the drug manufacturer and the pharmacy, whereas RFID technology is generally being deployed or considered for "tracking and tracing" within the supply chain.
"We're focusing on authentication at the point of dispensing to the patient," says Ian Rhodes, a member of PA's management group and leader of the project. "We want to ensure that, when the patient receives the drug, it is exactly as the manufacturer intended."
Mr Rhodes points out that the drug supply chain is extremely complex, with several risk points at which fraudulent products could leak in. Drugs are traded and retraded, and manufacturers have less control than they would in a more structured supply chain such as that for the food industry.
For example, in the European Union where parallel trading is encouraged, manufacturers may not have the right to track or trace a product, once they have sold it, to a wholesaler, say.
The pharmacist and the patient, meanwhile, may have no way of knowing for sure that a product is genuine, given the panoply of anti-counterfeiting measures being used, and the fact that the counterfeiters' mistakes are often invisible to all but the trained eye.
A report in February by the US Food and Drug Administration, on combating counterfeit drugs, recognises the role that RFID technology could play in addressing this problem. "Reliable RFID technology will make the copying of medications either extremely difficult or unprofitable," it says.
This is because, unlike a standard barcode, RFID chips enable "mass serialisation" - so a packet of paracetamol could have a unique identifier, in the same way that a car engine has its own serial number.
As PA envisages it, pharmacists would use scanners to check individual packets of drugs - in much the same way that retailers and restaurants check credit card authenticity. Within a few seconds, they would receive an answer confirming that the product was genuine.
"The system should enable the drugs industry and any pharmacists who use it to allay worries about privacy", says Mr Rhodes. Consumer groups, especially in the US, have already expressed concerns about "live" RFID tags leaving the store and enabling retailers to pry into consumers' buying habits and private lives.
Purchasers of, say, Viagra or an anti-Aids drug would understandably be upset if they were to walk into another store, only to find that its RFID scanners could identify the products in their pockets or shopping bags. PA's system does not allow any information relating to the drug type or person to be obtained from the tag.
Mr Rhodes stresses that a range of technologies including RFID can enable mass serialisation. At present barcodes (the more sophisticated can be made unique) would be cheaper, but with economies of scale as more RFID chips are produced, that advantage would be reduced.
Although the PA project focuses on authentication at the point of sale, the FDA report also envisages a key role for RFID technology in the more conventional tracking and tracing of every package of drugs as it moves from production to dispensing.
RFID tagging of products by manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers appears to be the most promising approach to reliable product tracking and tracing, it says.
With an RFID tag on every drug packet, consumers can also look forward to the day when domestic medicine cupboards will be fitted with RFID readers to warn of out-of-date products, Mr Tindale enthuses.
