Pharmaceutical RFID Still Leads Item-Level Authentication
By Dr. Peter Harrop
In a way, RFID is an enabling technology just like the sharpened metal edge or like paper. In common with these, it is widely used in the healthcare sector for very different purposes. RFID usage in pharmaceuticals is truly pioneering, and other sectors (such as the airline industry) are benchmarking healthcare for indications of the way to go. The chart on this page summarizes some of the trials and rollouts of RFID in pharma.
These groundbreaking practices have many lessons for all users of RFID, including:
Use as short a range as possible to avoid interference with other electronic equipment. Use as low a frequency as possible, because this gives a range that is more predictable, controllable, and tolerant of obstructions. 13.56 MHz has been used in over 55% of all RFID tags ever sold because it is virtually unaffected by water, is tolerant of thin metal, it has a good compromise of tag/system cost and range, and it can be implemented in the form of a thin label. At this frequency, the tag can be only 2.5 mm across when the antenna is on the chip (Hitachi Maxell) or only 8 mm across in label form for item-level drugs where centimeter rather than millimeter range is required for tags on very small plastic containers of drugs (TAGSYS, UPM Raflatac, Texas Instruments). IDTechEx believes that 13.56 MHz may be the operating frequency of over 70% of RFID tags in 2016, partly because the printed transistor circuits that may replace highest volume silicon chip-based tags will operate at this frequency. Chipless RFID tags (e.g., Scientific Generics and Flying Null) take many forms—from data storing materials to thin film transistor circuits—but they are of interest in the pharmaceutical industry for reasons such as low cost, thinness, damage tolerance, and tolerance of gamma sterilization, which can trash silicon chips..
UHF is becoming the standard frequency for pallets and cases under EPCglobal coding. Having a different frequency and technology for tags on items versus pallets and cases versus large containers and vehicles can be a good thing because a numbering system that copes with all applications is very complex. For example, vehicles and bulk containers are increasingly tagged at UHF or 2.45 GHz for longer range, faster data transfer.
There is currently a problem with the EPCglobal RFID labels because specification creep has led to 42,000 transistors being needed versus 5,000 in typical RFID tags of a few years ago. Item-level tagging could be read-only and use just 64 bits and use security in the system rather than in the tag. This was the original concept of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Auto-ID Center in 1999 for the Internet of Things.
There are concerns about UHF labels being very close to drugs when they are on the individual container. MIT and other research organizations are investigating whether the higher frequencies can affect labile bonds on large cancer drugs, for example. The effect would likely be one of heating rather than ionization at that frequency, but at higher frequencies, ionization is also a concern.
Almost certainly, there is nothing to worry about because power levels are very low with RFID. UHF mobile telephones are allowed in many hospitals and have been studied in detail. Though they typically use higher power levels than RFID, it must be said that they are not within two millimeters of a drug when they are used. Of more concern is the crowded nature of the UHF and 2.45 GHz bands with mobile phones, audio-visual, and other remotes and other equipment using UHF and WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and even microwave ovens at or near 2.45 GHz.
Despite these exciting developments, not all the RFID pioneering is in the pharmaceutical industry. Second generation chipless labels and stripes are an example. As an ultra low cost biodegradeable chipless RFID stripe is sought for use at blisterpack level, eyes are turning to ACREO in Sweden and a joint effort of Mreal/VTT and Panipol in Finland. They are printing chipless RFID at high speed onto low grade paper packaging material. Sometimes all that is involved is a polyanilene ink. One form is an intermittent stripe that is “the size of the side of a cigarette pack.” Sometimes the stripe has to pass the reader to be read, but static versions are also becoming available. At a few centimeters, 128 bits of read-only data can be read.
On the other hand, OrganicID in the USA and PolyIC in Germany claim to be about to launch 13.56 MHz thin film transistor circuits in RFID form this year and these could be read/write and even battery assisted where necessary. Maybe they will not reach the 0.1 cent price planned for the ink stripes, but one cent should be possible, a price that is probably impossible with RFID based on a silicon chip. IDTechEx believes that there will be a place for all these technologies. However, in predicting that hundreds of billions of RFID labels will be made in 2016, ABI Research and IDTechEx in their market research have independently come to the conclusion that this will only occur if a significant percentage of the RFID tags are fully printed.
Already the technologies used to make both ink stripe and thin film transistor RFID in the laboratories include high speed flexo, offset, and gravure printing. This is reminiscent of how barcodes were once separate labels but now they are printed with the packaging or directly onto the products. Will printed RFID, initially onto labels and later directly onto packaging include tens of billions of RFID labels and stripes on pharmaceutical bottles and blisters for error prevention, tamper detection, tracking, tracing, and anti-counterfeiting? Time will tell.
For more insight, read “RFID Forecasts, Players, Opportunities 2006-2016” and “Chipless RFID 2006-2016” available at www.idtechex.com; or attend Printed Electronics Europe in Cambridge, United Kingdom (www.printelec.com).
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