Drug Counterfeit Prevention

Texas Instruments' Tag-It(tm) Line Offers Expanded Versatility

Texas Instruments continues to establish itself as a leader in the pharmaceutical supply chain by rolling out the largest and most extensive standards-compliant HF product line - the Tag-it(tm) HF-I Product Family. This product line (20+ products) comes equipped with password write-protected capabilities - a feature unique to the industry. By combining RFID with PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) technology, TI allows secure transactions balancing privacy issues with supply chain efficiency.

The Tag-it ISO/IEC 15693 and ISO/IEC 18000-3 expand the scope, flexibility, and market applications for TI's HF product line. Tag-it is offered in both 256-bit and 2,048 bit memory options. It has the industry's broadest range of ISO/IEC 15693 standard chips, inlays, and antenna options, and offers users multiple memory and data protection options to fit their applications. Markets for this solution include product and asset tracking, library materials management, event and venue ticketing, laundry and textile rental, and pharmaceutical supply chain authentication.

The Password Protected write feature could be beneficial in many applications, one being ski resorts. If a skier's ticket/tag is loaded with $30, for example, that person can go to a concession stand to buy items and the reader at the stand opens up the tag through the password, taking out the amount of money owed, writing the new balance onto the tag, and then locking the tag. The function of the password here is to protect against people hacking the ticket/tag and loading it up on their own. TI is the only company that has this ability - the software to write things onto the tag only after the tag's password has been accessed.

Another example would be for the pharmaceutical industry. When a patient uses a prescription drug - one for treating HIV, for example - there's a privacy concern because someone with an RFID reader could potentially read the RFID tag on the prescription. Pharmacists want to eliminate the capability of this happening. On the other hand, manufacturers and wholesalers need to know what this particular drug is, because otherwise they have difficulty achieving supply chain efficiencies. So, in the supply chain there are two competing needs - privacy versus supply chain efficiency.

"This tag solves both problems," explains Mikael Ahlund, Director of RFID Healthcare and Tag-it Products. "At the manufacturing level, we'll write onto the tag the fact that it is drug ABC, which may or may not be an HIV drug. When it comes down the chain, both the manufacturer and the supplier can benefit from normal supply chain efficiencies, through knowing what drug it is."

When it gets to the pharmacy, before it goes out to the customer, the pharmacists will open the tag through the software and overwrite this piece of the tag with zeros and lock it. Now, when the drug goes out to the patient, no one can read it. The tag, however, is still alive, so if there is a need for a recall or if the drugs are suspected to be counterfeit, you can still take them back and trace them to see what happened.

A typical solution in retail supply chains, in regard to privacy issues, is to kill the tags so that they're totally inoperable. In pharmaceutical supply chains, you actually want the tag to remain alive because of the problems with counterfeit drugs and the need to be able to trace it in a recall situation.

TI also offers something in this family of products that no other company does - laser tuning. It performs a parametric test, reading each tag individually and adjusting them. It uses a laser to reconfigure the tags, etching out bits and pieces from the middle of the inlay until optimization in achieved. Another parametric test is performed for confirmation. Ahlund says, "What that means for the user is that when you buy TI tags, you know exactly what the performance is going to be because it's very tightly controlled. You can design your processes precisely to the specifications of those tags."

In another successful application, TI's Tag-it HF-I ISO/IEC 15693 inlays were incorporated into each of the 100,000 tickets sold for the Tennis Masters Cup 2005 in Shanghai, China, in November. Visit www.ti-rfid.com.