DNA labelling for drug security?
German logistics firm Movianto GmbH has developed what it considers to be the most effective protection against the infiltration of counterfeit drugs into the supply chain: DNA labelling. In a statement, the firm noted that the proportion of counterfeit products has recently been reported by the European Commission to be rapidly increasing.
Movianto has teamed up with fellow Germany-based identif GmbH to find a method for adopting the DNA coding method to make pharmaceutical products secure. For the time being, the cost of such an anticounterfeiting mechanism would mean it could only be applied to the more expensive branded drugs. No details of the device's cost have been given, but it seems likely that the same problem for the adoption of such a powerful security tool as with radio-frequency identification (RFID) will come into play (Marketletters passim).