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Being members of the media, we regularly hear our share of analysts and experts giving their thoughts and opinions on a variety of healthcare packaging topics. And without question, the one topic that seems to come up more than any other these days is RFID. Most industry observers basically say the same thing about this track and trace method: it could be effective, it shows great promise, but the kinks need to be worked out.

But when a pharmaceutical company actually speaks out in detailed fashion on what it’s learned from RFID thus far, we’re much more enthused, even if the results only serve to back up the words of the experts.

Such was the case at the recent HealthPack conference, held in San Antonio, TX last week. One of the highlights of that event was a presentation from Mike Wallace, manager of package and process development for the Ross Laboratories division of Abbott Laboratories. Wallace gave a very detailed and candid summary of what Abbott has learned from its participation in the EPC Jumpstart pilot, as well as from its shipping of RFID-tagged cases and pallets of Schedule II drugs to Wal-Mart this past January. In both cases, Abbott worked on RFID tag-reading processes in its development and testing laboratory. The company also addressed product security, regulatory and retailer requirements, order accuracy, labor productivity, and return and recall efficiency. As Wallace told attendees, a complete supply chain solution was designed, tested, implemented, and verified.

As expected, Abbott’s results from both pilots confirmed some of the challenges associated with RFID technology. Wallace said that, while the company met Wal-Mart’s mandate for tagged cases, only a partial order was filled, despite Abbott’s intentions. In addition, he pointed out that the hardware is far from perfect at this stage in time. “The hardware is still evolving, and manufacturing processes are still in their learning curves,” he said, saying that reader/tag interoperability can be sporadic at best. And while pilots can reveal good data, “implementation will likely be more complex than initially projected,” he said.

However, Wallace did say Abbott achieved 100% read rates on cases and pallets in one pilot, using manually-applied Class 0 tags. He also said the company confirmed that RFID can successfully track and trace products through the supply chain, provide mass serialization capability, increase order accuracy, improve labor productivity, and facilitate recall processes. Most importantly, Wallace noted that FDA is taking RFID very seriously, which should be a rallying cry for more pilots throughout the industry.

“Companies need to start evaluating the various internal and external quality and regulatory issues and processes as early as possible if they are going to meet FDA expectations related to RFID,” he said. “The companies who begin now to work with RFID to learn, apply, and improve will be the winners who get the early returns on investment promised by the technology.”

That might sound like a quote from an RFID expert, but the fact that it’s from a pharmaceutical professional makes it all the more exciting.