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news.Technology firms 3M and Texas Instruments have developed a radio frequency identification platform designed to authenticate drugs in a bid to combat counterfeiting and boost pharmaceutical supply chain security.
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The Authenticated radio frequency identification (RFID) Platform works by delivering authentication between each end of the supply chain. A Texas Instruments RFID tag is placed on each package which delivers a machine-readable security stamp containing a digital signature. This signature enables dispensing sites to determine the validity of the product.
The Authenticated RFID label also contains additional physical security features to reduce the risk of a security breach on the label and to serve as a backup in order to give supply chain participants without readers a method to verify tag authenticity.
3M said its authentication system confirms the RFID tag’s digital signature as genuine, creates a time-stamped event marker and stores the marker on the tag. The Authenticated RFID reader provides additional event information to the network to indicate that trusted supply chain participants have handled the product.
“This new approach to addressing drug authenticity using RFID and PKI technologies can be initially implemented at each end of the supply chain today, while providing a migration path to broader deployment across the pharmaceutical supply chain,” added Mikael Ahlund, director of RFID Healthcare, Texas Instruments RFid Systems.