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Recently, there has been much talk about the pros and cons of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology as an anticounterfeiting weapon. Waiting for the debate to settle, many companies have taken a “wait-and-see” approach.

However, at least one pharmaceutical company doesn’t appear to be waiting. Instead, Purdue Pharma LP (Stamford, CT) (www.purduepharma.com) recently announced further action on its ongoing RFID pilot program launched last November. The company just purchased 100 RFID mobile scanners from Symbol Technologies Inc. (Holtsville, NY) (www.symbol.com) to further augment its anticounterfeiting initiative. Purdue representatives will be using the Symbol MC9000-G scanner, which combines RFID, bar code, imaging, and Wi-Fi capabilities. The company also plans to make these scanners available to law enforcement and cargo theft investigative groups throughout the country, who will be able to help monitor bottles of Purdue’s OxyContin painkiller. “Adding RFID will help police officers solve issues of theft, as each bottle will be able to be traced back through the supply chain,” says Aaron Graham, vice president and chief security officer for Purdue. Graham explains that where there is evidence of product tampering, personnel from the FBI and other agencies will be able to determine where specific bottles originated in the supply chain.

Symbol Technologies’ RFID class-0 RFID tags are being used on the bottles, according to Graham. The 1-in.sq tags contain a 96-bit electronic product code number and are placed behind the bottles’ existing labels. Symbol’s RFID readers then capture tag information at reader stations set up along the OxyContin automatic packaging line. At that point, the data are immediately moved into Purdue’s asset management system for real-time visibility. “Integrating the RFID electronic product code (EPC) for each bottle into our system was an extremely important part of the project,” said Chuck Nardi, information officer, commercial systems, Purdue. “In a short time frame, we worked with Symbol to make the interface into our information infrastructure a fully functioning system.”

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The use of the RFID scanners actually marks the second phase of Purdue’s OxyContin RFID pilot study, which involves the shipping of 100-tablet bottles of that drug with RFID tags embedded in the labels. Currently, those bottles are tagged and tracked from Purdue’s Wilson, NC, manufacturing facility and sent to Wal-Mart stores and drug wholesaler H.D. Smith, where the contents are divided into separate prescriptions. However, the smaller bottles of OxyContin that pharmacists give to consumers do not have the tags.

According to the company, the painkiller is a popular target for thieves because it is regularly sold on the black market for recreational purposes.

In the next phase of the pilot, Purdue will tag bottles of its Palladome pain medicine and ship them from its Totowa, NJ, facility. The company is also exploring the use of variable-effect, color-shifting ink in its OxyContin labels.

Though there is still much to be learned about how effective RFID really is in stopping counterfeiters, it’s encouraging to see a prominent company like Purdue take the lead in studying it. Whatever the results of the pilot study are, it’s more proof that pharmaceutical packaging and labeling will likely play an important part of anticounterfeiting in the future.