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Letters to the Editor
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RFID pilot
Radio-frequency identification will support pharmacists’ decisions
From Ms A. Williams
In 2004, counterfeit medicines reached UK patients through the legal
supply chain on two separate occasions. It is not true that authentication
at the point of dispensing is a solution looking for a problem (PJ, 19
March, p330).
The concern is that these incidents may be the tip of the iceberg. Currently
no mechanism is in place to identify the full extent of fraud. We do
know that globally fraudulent medicines (including counterfeits) are
costing industry $30bn per annum. Recently, EU accession has widened
borders to countries where there are known and significant problems of
counterfeit medicines. Latest estimates suggest that global losses will
rise to $68 billion by 2009. Producing counterfeit medicines is big business.
The problem is not going to go away and directly affects patient safety.
In health care, prevention is often better than cure and this situation
is no different. Preventing the problem from reaching areas where the
prevalence is believed to be low, such as the UK, is worthwhile. With
EU legislation encouraging the free movement of goods, it is only a matter
of time before we see increasing levels of illegal medicines in the UK.
With regard to Ian Shepherd’s concern relating to accuracy, like
any other large scale IT-based system the radio-frequency identification
system must be fully auditable, accurate and secure. Working with organisations
such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the
NHS and GS1UK, it will be Aegate’s responsibility to ensure it
is. One overriding principle is that the system is designed to be fail-safe
(ie, it will err on the side of caution and fail to authenticate if there
is an anomaly, rather than give a false positive response). This was
fully tested in the pilot and shown to be 100 per cent accurate. It will
never be the intention to provide a system that replaces a pharmacists’ professional
judgement to dispense, but to support their decisions by providing better
information than they have today.
Alison Williams
Director, Aegate Ltd |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal