Tagging authentication: Q&A with TruTag Technologies' Kent Mansfield

TruTag Technologies is looking to impact the food and drug industry with its edible security platform. “TruTags,” the company's microtags, can help to authenticate products without packaging or labels. For example, the surface of every pill could be encoded with a TruTag, according to the company, that could hold all of the information from a drug package insert. DSN spoke with Kent Mansfield, president of TruTag Technologies.

(Click here to view the full Category Review.)



DSN: Why edible bar codes?



Kent Mansfield: The term “edible bar code” was coined as a descriptor for our coded silicon dioxide material that is used in the drug and food industry. We chose this term because our specialized, coded material acts like a traditional bar code in that it contains a unique serial identifier. However, the spectral codes associated with our microtags are covert, and these tiny particles are made of silica, a completely safe, edible material that has been used for decades in food and drugs. TruTag’s ability to batch code serial identifiers into our specialized SiO2 material enables any product to ‘self identify’ without the need for a package ... . For example, TruTag has developed an application for solid oral dosage form products where the TruTag coded SiO2 material is added during the manufacturing process and becomes ‘embedded’ in the pill’s outer coating, thus enabling a scan of any pill that will identify and reveal the product, dosage, image of pill, image of package and other key attributes, such as lot number and date of manufacture.

DSN: What are some of the applications?



Mansfield: Applications of TruTag include tagging and authenticating high-volume, low-cost items, such as pharmaceutical products, medical devices, food products and packaging, industrial products, auto parts, electronics, batteries, aerospace and consumer goods.



DSN: What can TruTag do for retail pharmacy and manufacturers?



Mansfield: Over time, TruTag’s patented SiO2 coded material can change the entire pharmaceutical industry. Initially, manufacturers and brand owners will be able to have better control over specific high-profile drugs by understanding the provenance of the medicine in the supply chain and where compromise or diversion may be occurring. Further, this tool will help with administration of returns and recalls since it can quickly identify where and when the specific product at issue was made. On-dose authentication can even help drug manufacturers in the drug development process by invisibly marking drug product used in clinical trials, where placebo and active batches are designed to look identical, but where simple mix-ups could jeopardize major new drug development research.



As more drug products become ‘tagged’ in the marketplace, the TruTag authentication platform could revolutionize the prescription and OTC drug business by enabling the interrogation of drugs directly by point-of-dispensing outlets, such as pharmacies or clinics, to confirm authenticity, dosage, manufacturing origin, inventory count and more. This also could significantly bring credibility to legitimate online pharmaceutical outlets by enabling participation in the tagging program. Ultimately, as TruTag becomes more pervasive in the industry, pharmacies will be able to scan and confirm multiple pieces of product intelligence automatically at the time of prescription fulfillment. Also, this could play a major role in patient compliance and provide data interaction between the patient, the pharmacist and other stakeholders.



DSN: What does it mean for patients?



Mansfield: Once tagging is used by retail outlets, the next step in the value chain is consumer participation. At that point, TruTag would be launching a consumer reader where patients could interrogate their own medicine to verify that it is authentic, that it has been properly prescribed, and that there are no adverse interactions between the various medicines that the patient is taking. Through this activity, the various stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem could build more direct relationships to end-users. The use by patients of these readers would provide massive amounts of product intelligence and behavior trends. For example, in the area of patient compliance, doctors, drug makers and health insurance providers would have access to information about if and when patients are taking their medicine, which would allow each of them to better understand the effectiveness of the drug regimes.