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"Even where there is no power and water there will be cell phone service," says Shaffiq Essajee, chief medical officer of the Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative. "People charge phones with hand dynamos or car batteries."
Bill Thies, a Microsoft researcher and co-founder of Innovators In Health, an MIT initiative to improve health care in developing regions, says he thinks the system could have a "real impact." As a part of Innovators in Health, Thies developed the uPhone, cell phone software that lets medical workers record patient data to be saved in a central location for further review. Thies notes that others have suggested using SMS messages to authenticate drugs. One such system, known as mPedigree, involves the use of scratch-off stickers affixed to each package. Before a consumer buys the drugs, she scratches off the sticker's silver coating to reveal a verification code, which can be sent via cell phone for authentication, in much the same way that Epothecary authenticates transactions with end users. The difference is that Epothecary tracks the drugs through each stage of their journey--not just during the final sale.
"The key step for Epothecary is that it looks at every [transaction] before it hits the end user. You couldn't do that with a single scratch-off sticker," Thies says.
This makes the scheme particularly interesting to the Clinton Foundation, Essajee says. Counterfeit drugs aren't a big problem for the organization, he says, since it provides HIV medicine free of charge, so there isn't much of a black market. But Epothecary is still of interest to the foundation as a means of increasing efficiency. "It can be used to monitor supply chain, by giving you a snapshot of where your commodities are at any point in time and place."
Essajee admits he does see obstacles to implementing Epothecary, though, particularly because drugs currently aren't labeled with two-dimensional bar codes. Tagging every package once it reaches drug warehouses in the developing world would take considerable time and effort, and the process could be prone to human error, he says. Someone with access to the tags could also undermine the system and label counterfeit meds with legitimate tags while reselling the real drugs on the side.
"If it was actually the drug manufacturers placing those bar codes--that would be best. In fact, that's the only way to ensure that counterfeit has not entered the supply chain," he says.
Electronic and biological tracking technologies could safeguard the nation's food, but the meat industry may be too mired in antiquated practices to buy in.
High-tech tags will let manufacturers track products from warehouse to home to recycling bin. But what's great for logistics could become a privacy nightmare.
Microscopic details on the surface that are distinct and singular can identify fake meds or gray market meds (Gray market are drugs sold for less for the purpose of export but sold for a profit in country)
Ingenia Technolgies a UK company demonstrated this technology.
http://www.ingeniatechnology.com/
Yes a cell phone would be a great way for consumers or a pharmacy to authenticate drugs, currency, or most products that have fakes or fraud.
Disclosure: I have no financial interest in Ingenia Technolgies.
How reliable is Catching Fake Meds ?
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The retailer then takes a picture of his own bar code, as well as the distributor's bar code and the bar codes for the medication he wants to buy.
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This procedure described by Michael Paik is not reliable.
Cell phone is ok for non-commercial use.
To scan 2D codes in real time in retail, one needs industry-standard real-time OS embedded device, scanner with camera having good resolution at close distances.
For camera phone it takes time to aim and to decode.
So end users may have difficulty capturing the scanned 2D Codes.
Therefore, the devices should have a dedicated camera, CCD, for doing 2D code scans.
Replace 2D codes by 1D barcodes.
Replace cell phone by barcode scanner and you are home
with reliable solution.
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If everything checks out, the retailer can purchase the drugs and record that transaction on the server, via his cell phone."
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Exactly the case.
Cell phone is not ok for processing of retail business transactions.
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serial numbers and holograms, are easily faked, and Paik says..
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And what about security of 2D codes ?
Ideas are great.
Life is real.
Darius
dariusjack2006 (at) yahoo.ie
Global 2D Marketing Consortium - GM2DBW
http://tinyurl.com/GM2DBW
This approach assumes retailers are fooled with fake med. But I just wonder, how many of them don't really know what are buying? Retailers obviously have an incentive in buying fake med: lower cost. Verification should be a final user concern, not to leave in hands of those with interest compromised.
Very slow and complicated to scan 2d barcode
I used my nokia e-71 phone to image the barcode at the top of the article directly off the screen of my computer. it took longer to register to post this than to find my phone unlock it open the barcode app and scan the barcode.
the barcode said"ABF 123456789"
the additional feature in this concept is the 8digit hash the end user is provided that allows them to verify what they are getting and who should be selling it.
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carlhage
84 Comments
Bar codes are simpler than RFID
I'm impressed. I always felt that ordinary bar codes and human readable registration numbers are better than the RFID schemes now being demoed. A network transaction to track serial numbers is really required in any case, since an RFID alone could be taken from legitimate product then reused with counterfeit material. Using a cellphone means that the cost of authentication and tracking can be kept very low and a pharmacist in a third world country is likely to have one anyway. The equipment to authenticate and track never needs to be more than the cost of an iphone at most.
Even though this was pitched for use in the developing world, it would also be a boon to pharmacies and distributors in the US. Just add a webcam to the pharmacy PC (net-connected) and add software. Hold the box in front of the camera and press a function key-- the box is authenticated, and inventory tracked. Customs inspectors could use the same-- iphone/cellphone PDA in lieu of more expensive scanner/loggers (PDTs).
The FDA really needs to set the standards. It could work with industry and fund research such as this to produce open source software tools that serve as reference implementations to better define the standards and allow for quick adoption.
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