How will FDA mandates push RFID growth?
It’s the crucial question posted to RFID blogs, by news media and tech geeks everywhere.
As Information Week’s Rick Whiting reports, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is about to apply some pressure to speed things up,” with the FDA’s Counterfeit Drug Task Force putting out a report in the next few weeks that delves into the issue of whether drug manufacturers should need to have a system in place that ensures a drug’s pedigree for track and trace purposes. Such a tracking scenario would trace a drug from its manufacturer origins, through wholesalers and distributors, to its final destination – hospitals and resale pharmacies.
Whatever the report says, it’s obvious the number of stakeholders in this pharma-RFID biz is growing (the increasing number of pilot projects like Pfizer’s tagging bottles of Viagra is big evidence).