Markets feature: pharmaceuticals

So why is it that, in the UK, discussion on RFID implementation in the pharmaceutical sector seems to be focused on the tagging of crates and pallets in the supply chain, and potential adopters are reluctant to consider RFID as a suitable technology for track and trace applications at the primary pack level?

Either IDTechEx’s prediction is based on the trial of RFID tags on a few pharmaceutical products in the US which produced better results than expected, or the UK pharmaceutical industry is rightly wary that this predicted boom may be only that. The prediction looks over-inflated when really there is little take-up and even less enthusiasm for the supposed benefits.

To discuss the likelihood of RFID being taken up in the pharmaceutical sector, even at pallet level, Domino UK instigated a talking heads debate and the resulting discussions prove that the UK is still a stronghold for sceptics.

Issues regarding the strength of the technology, the security of patient prescriptions, the risk of counterfeiting and the high costs negating a strong business case were raised by those involved in all stages of the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Warwick Smith
Director, British Generic Manufacturers Association
“Our first priority is always patient safety. In an industry that relies on the integrity of its product, we are always looking for ways to improve security of supply and the integrity of the supply chain.

Multiple factors affect patient safety. Medical error is one of the most significant – 20% of medical errors are medication errors. The use of technology to verify the medicine at the point of dispensing or administration in hospital could help significantly here. New technologies that permit ready, effective and cost-effective track and trace may also have a role to play in ensuring the integrity of the supply chain.
However, the generic industry is not likely to employ RFID in the short term for two reasons: first, the current cost is prohibitive and would disadvantage the smaller players in the market if it were rolled out across the whole industry; and secondly, there are alternative technologies which provide many of the same benefits as RFID but with lower costs.

The Department of Health has been tasked by the Government to investigate standards for, and uses of, machine-readable codes to improve patient safety in the delivery of healthcare.

Our members are working with the Department of Health to gather evidence and data to inform any joint decisions made by industry and the Government.

Central to that effort is a pilot project being run in the UK by a consortium of companies across all parts of the pharmaceutical supply chain, which aims to utilise a combination of datamatrix and RFID technologies to demonstrate the feasibility of improved supply chain security in the supply of medicines from factory to patient.

The BGMA believes that, in time, RFID will become the technology of choice for the pharmaceutical industry. However, to justify the cost of mass adoption, the price of a single tag must come down to around five pence.

The benefits to our members’ businesses will include a greatly improved ability to track and trace and thus to help determine whether a product is a counterfeit and how it got into the supply chain, as well as providing general practitioners and hospitals with a technology that helps them to have more confidence that what is prescribed will be dispensed.”

Tony Walsh
RFID Solutions business development manager for Europe, Domino
“Patient safety and anti-counterfeiting are key concerns in the pharmaceutical sector and sufficient ID is vital for issues like recall.

Most of the current ID coding on pharmaceutical products is done at batch level only. This means that if a small proportion of a product is found to be faulty or counterfeit, the whole batch must be recalled.
In the future, this won’t be necessary. Unique ID numbers printed on primary packs will allow the manufacturer to identify precisely the faulty packs and recall only those.

Domino has recently expanded its applications into print and apply with laser, thermal-transfer or inkjet printing. Alpha-numeric codes, barcodes, datamatrix codes or RFID tags can all be used to give each pack a unique ID number.

There is a split in take-up at the moment. In the US, manufacturers are much more likely to use an RFID tag. However, in Europe, coding methods such as datamatrix are more popular – particularly for pharmaceuticals. Where line of site isn’t an issue, you don’t need RFID. On cases and pallets, however, RFID becomes a much more acceptable method of storing and communicating information.

The cost of tags continues to fall while their performance continues to improve. The level and quality of RFID infrastructure is also improving. The crucial bit to making the RFID-based supply chain work is the data storage system.

Domino has recently introduced a piece of software built into a camera phone that will allow direct access to a database over a secure phone line to check that the code on a certain product is what it’s supposed to be.”

John Ferguson
Commercial affairs manager, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry
“RFID is an interesting technology, but it remains just that; a technology. It can provide an ID code and other data on medicinal packaging, which can be read by a scanner. But that process can also be achieved with a 2D datamatrix barcode. 2D codes are able to carry exactly the same quantity and type of data as an RFID tag, but at considerably lower cost.

There are some benefits and merits to RFID; it doesn’t require line of sight to be able to read a code and, depending on the type of tag, information can continue to be written to that tag, throughout the supply chain. Whether those advantages are significant enough for a pharmaceutical product to offset the higher cost is the matter to consider.

You need an infrastructure in place in order to be able to use RFID technology, and that doesn’t exist at the moment. We also need to resolve the issues of different standards being used in different countries, the security issues and how to bring the cost of each tag down to around a few pence. If that happens, then clearly RFID will have a place in the supply chain. But I suspect that won’t be for a while yet.

There is no doubt that industry can see the potential of RFID, but, by the time mass adoption becomes viable, there might be another, better technology in development. The pace of technological development is so rapid that we can’t say for sure that RFID technology is the only one we want to use.
The key questions for me – price, standards and security – are still to be answered.”

Tony Garlick
Technical director, British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers
“I think the main factor affecting the adoption of RFID technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain is ‘who is going to carry the cost?’

Drugs are expensive to the government and I’m not sure that they would be willing to fund the implementation of RFID across the whole of the NHS.

The big problem at the moment is that RFID is only really viable for high-value products. Generic medicines are cheap to produce and I don’t know if the margins made on these products will be enough to cover the cost of implementation.

Whether or not we’ll see things like 2D barcodes or unique ID numbers being used on primary packs is another question. That could happen as a step prior to the adoption of RFID. But I don’t see it happening for quite a long time.

I think in time we will see RFID technology being used at pallet level and maybe even at case level, but I don’t think we’ll see it being used at item level for a long time.

Other manufactures will be watching what happens with Pfizer and its single distribution channel, but they won’t be making any decisions for two or three years.

I’m not going to say the way pharmaceuticals is supplied is not going to change, but I can’t see RFID being taken up on a large scale in the next five years. But 10 years on, it might well be a reality.”

David Cousins
Head of safe medicine practice, NHS National Patient Safety Authority
“My work involves the very far end of the supply chain, ensuring that patients get the correct medicine and the correct dose. But the pharmaceutical industry often considers the supply chain to mean only crates and pallets of goods.

As far as I’m concerned, RFID is not the only method of securing the pharmaceutical supply chain, from manufacturer to patient. Auto ID and 2D barcodes are workable alternatives. In fact, a Council of Europe report is shortly going to be published that will recommend that 2D barcodes are used as a way of authenticating cartons or packs of pharmaceutical products, and to ensure correct dosing.

The benefits of RFID technology may be very apparent in the warehouse and the supply chain but they are not so obvious in the pharmacy or in the patient’s home.

The focus of RFID in the pharmaceutical supply chain seems to be on anti-counterfeiting and reducing costs, rather than on improving patient safety. You often hear about RFID technology as a method of track and trace, but in the pharmaceuticals business, it really should be a method of track, trace and match; that is matching the right drug to the right patient. There’s not much point in just tracking and tracing. Matching is the key.”

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