RFID a "Viable" Solution

Regulators are interested in having all product information in one data carrier, reported Scott Gray, global business manager, GS1.

AIM Global offers an international network of leaders in automatic identification technology, reported president Dan Mullen.

RFID is used on real-world pharma packaging lines, reported Michael Manley, senior director, Health and Life Sciences RFID, Impinj.

RFID inlay quality impacts packaging line efficiency, reported Michael Ryan, strategic account manager, Avery Dennison RFID Div.

Traceability of serialized products throughout the healthcare product supply chain using RFID could be possible in the near future, reported speakers during PMP News’s exclusive 2008 Webcast, “Applying RFID on the Healthcare Product Packaging Line.” The event, sponsored by Impinj Inc., was the third installment in the series, “Reducing Risk through Packaging.”

Moderating the Webcast was Dan Mullen, president of AIM Global, the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility. Speakers included Scott Gray, global business manager, GS1; Michael Ryan, strategic account manager, Avery Dennison; and Michael Manley, senior director, health and life sciences RFID, Impinj.

“Product identification benefits patients,” says Gray. Current trends in identification include a current migration from linear bar codes to 2-D bar codes and ultimately to RFID. Some linear bar codes cannot combine trade item numbers with serial numbers, Gray pointed out, so that creates risk because two scans would be needed to capture necessary data. “Regulators are interested in having the data in one carrier for one read event,” he said.

Phase 1 of GS1 Healthcare’s efforts has involved drafting application standards for product packaging, Gray explained. Standards are expected to be ratified in June or July 2009.

Within the GS1 standards, RFID is now an option at the application standards level. “It doesn’t replace bar codes but it is now a viable option listed within the application standards,” said Gray. “This now allows and permits the proliferation of RFID between companies.”

For the last three years, Manley and Ryan have worked on several pharmaceutical packaging line deployments of RFID, such as those for Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Novartis, and others. Impinj provides chips, designs inlays, and licenses its designs to partners like Avery Dennison. Avery Dennison also has its own in-house design team for off-the-shelf and custom inlay designs. Drug manufacturers can purchase inlays from Avery Dennison or its partners and can purchase the packaging-line RFID system from Impinj. The Impinj system includes RFID readers, reader antennas, and reader software with certified interfaces for leading serialization system software providers including Systech International and Domino, and Impinj professional services are required to deploy the system.

“It all starts with the manufacturer. Once enough of them are tagging, then wholesalers will be able to take advantage of the technology,” said Manley. He reported that Purdue is shipping 5 million tagged bottles and has achieved Six Sigma performance.

Ryan advised companies to consider the following before beginning to integrate RFID into their packaging:

• Review your current packaging requirements.
• Review your current packaging supplier’s RFID capabilities.
• Determine any data requirements.
• Select the correct inlay for your project: Label form factor, packaging and medical device size, dose form, antenna design, and memory requirements.

Packaging line operational efficiencies depend upon inlay quality, said Ryan. For instance, “inlays must provide accurate reads at item, case, and pallet without reduction in packaging line throughput,” he said. In addition, “100% read of items in the case, all at high speeds without slowing down the line” is imperative. “Rigorous end-to-end testing processes ensure high-quality products meet these demanding requirements.”

Manley shared real-world customer feedback on how RFID has optimized packaging lines as well as item traceability in the supply chain. “RFID eliminates the need for line-of-sight inspection, which can be extremely difficult in most applications based on the location of the 2-D [bar code] with respect to the product’s direction of travel, the product pack-out within the case, and production speeds,” one user expressed.

Said another: “With RFID, you can pack-out your cases as normal and simply run them through an RFID tunnel to capture the contents of the case and [add an] RFID case label to establish parent-child relationships.”

Safety in the supply chain may also be enhanced. “As RFID is generally behind a label or within a carton, it serves as a covert anticountefeiting feature. In addition, as 2-D is visible on the exterior of the package and technologies to imprint 2-D are readily available, it is more susceptible to counterfeiting or diversion.”

One Impinj customer expressed that its “bottles were being sold on eBay. We were able to acquire them and track them back to the wholesaler very quickly.”

For wide RFID use throughout the healthcare supply chain, however, Gray said that more pervasive reader implementation is needed to allow for greater numbers of products to be marked and identified.