Aegate News

Aegate demonstrates anti-drug counterfeiting technology and study at FDA public meeting

7th February 2006

Aegate, the pharmaceutical authentication company, is to demonstrate at an FDA public meeting this week a major technology breakthrough that can be installed in pharmacies.

Working at the forefront of improved brand protection and patient safety, Aegate is developing new ways to test the authenticity of pharmaceutical products at the moment when they are dispensed; tackling a multi-billion dollar counterfeit problem that is responsible for significant suffering and deaths.

Since late 2005, in New York State, Aegate has been running the largest tagging study of pharmaceutical products ever undertaken in the USA. Due to report in March 2006, more than 40 pharmacies have been participating in item-level authentication of medicines.

Aegate's 'Authentication at the Point of DispensingTM' service opens up patient-safety communications between all involved parties: pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacists, doctors and hospitals, as well as regulators such as the FDA. Operating in the US and Europe, Aegate's service will use mass serialization security technologies - such as bar-code and RFID - as a way of protecting both manufacturers' brands and the safety of patients.

On view at the FDA public meeting in Bethesda Maryland on February 8 and 9, Aegate's custom-built multi-technology reader, which can be installed in dispensaries, will mean that manufacturers will be able to choose from a wide selection of barcode and RFID security technologies, knowing that pharmacists can authenticate them with a single device. It also allows critical operations to be better managed, such as identification of counterfeit and stolen medicines, communication of safety messages to dispensaries, and product recalls.