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by Hallie Forcinio, Contributing Editor Posted on Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:26:44 AM   With concern about drug counterfeiting and diversion rising, there is no doubt that pharmaceutical products will eventually be identified at the item level by a serialized code and that chain-of-custody, or pedigree, records documenting their travels through the supply chain will be required. How and when this will be accomplished are far less certain. Although various digital coding systems currently on the market can apply serialized codes to primary packages at line speeds, radio frequency identification (RFID) is favored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the enabling technology for collecting the data that will enable product tracking and tracing and the creation of electronic 'e-pedigree' records, which can reveal unauthorized touch points. Item-level tagging and supply chain visibility also hold the promise of significant cost savings for pharmaceutical companies "through better inventory management at all levels of the supply chain," noted Randall W. Lutter, Ph.D., associate commissioner for Policy and Planning at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), during a keynote address at RFID World this past March. [Click to continue] |