Johannesburg, 03 Aug 2005
Conservative estimates show that 10% of drugs on the world market are counterfeit, delegates were told at a recent radio frequency identification (RFID) workshop hosted by Siemens in Munich, Germany.
Siemens has partnered with Swiss pharmaceutical packaging manufacturing company, Limmatdruck/Zeiler, to help address the world health threat of counterfeit drugs.
The solution developed by Siemens uses high-frequency (13.56MHz) transponders and read/write to enable rapid read rates and information updating and storage.
RFID labels also enable product tracking, which Siemens says is important in light of the fact that drugs worth around $40 billion go missing each year.
In addition to protection against counterfeiting and theft, Siemens says RFID labels for pharmaceuticals provide the opportunity to create systems for automatic inventory management, efficient production planning and temperature monitoring.
"This solution demonstrates Siemens is able to offer services along the entire value chain from RFID transponders and read/write devices to material flow solutions and system integration," says Winfried Holz, president of the global solution business at Siemens Business Services.
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