QR codes on medicines

Arathi Nair
Arathi Nair June 26, 2022
Updated 2022/06/26 at 6:01 PM
QR codes

Soon, a brief scan of your smartphone could verify the legitimacy of the medication you’re about to consume. Researchers in the US and South Korea have created an edible code that, in their opinion, could be crucial in the fight against the rising issue of bogus medications.

The National Institute of Agricultural Sciences in South Korea and Purdue University’s biomedical engineers created this novel technique; details of which were detailed in the journal ACS Central Science earlier this year.

According to Dr. Young Kim, the study’s primary investigator, fake and counterfeit medication is a “major concern.” Although not a brand-new issue, it has been getting worse as a result of the epidemic and an increase in online pharmacies, many of which are operating without a license.

For a number of years, Kim, a professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue University, has been focusing on creating anti-counterfeiting technologies. He and his team have already worked to battle fake pharmaceuticals products, and this most recent edible coding ( QR Codes) technique builds on that.

Kim remarked that the packaging of pharmaceuticals is the main emphasis of current authenticity solutions. These include adding RFID tags, putting barcodes or QR codes on packaging, and using anti-tampering tools.

All of this is significant. However, Kim and his group preferred to concentrate on “on-dose” solutions, which involve individual dose-level authentication. He explained that this makes it more difficult to copy and recreate because our security tag or technology is incorporated with the specific pill or treatment. Fake pharmaceuticals and other health items are a major global problem, making this kind of technology more and more important.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one in ten medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or faked, making this problem “one of the pressing health issues for the coming decade.” According to the WHO, up to two billion people lack access to essential medications and other health supplies, which provides room for the growth of subpar and fake goods.

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