Avery Dennison, Schreiner MediPharm, and PragmatIC Semiconductor have collaborated to use NFC technology to extend smart packaging to item-level daily medicines, significantly improving patient safety and experience.

NFC technology has many advantages in smart packaging applications. It can be used for anti-counterfeiting authentication, security authentication, end-to-end tracking, and reordering.

As far as medicine is concerned, it not only allows patients to connect to easy-to-read instructions, but also to video/audio guides, helplines, social media support, and even to their attending doctor or nurse.

In the past, limited by the cost of traditional NFC inlays and chips, this function was only used for high-value (or high-risk) products.

Now, with the joint efforts of Schreiner MediPharm, PragmatIC and Avery Dennison, these functions can be applied to cost-sensitive daily medical drugs.

The core of these cost-effective smart solutions is Avery Dennison's NFC inlay, which includes the NFC chip card of the ConnectIC series produced by PragmatIC.

Because these flexible chips are thinner than human hair, and strong and durable, they are suitable for small-sized objects, and provide an ideal solution for adding unique identification to cost-sensitive products (such as small syringes or vials).

Schreiner MediPharm uses Avery Dennison inlay with PragmatIC chips to expand its product portfolio.

"For Schreiner MediPharm, it is particularly important to solve customer and application specific problems. The cooperation with Avery Dennison and PragmatIC can meet the company's needs and avoid medication errors in a variety of product applications. Therefore, we can have a wider range of applications. Internally improve product safety and support patient-oriented.” said Stefan Widman, senior director of strategic marketing and business development at Schreiner MediPharm.

PragmatIC CEO Scott White said: "This cooperation shows that our pioneering ConnectIC series of products will help accelerate the deployment of RFID digital solutions in the medical field."

Francesco Melo, Vice President and General Manager of Avery Dennison Smart Labels, added: “We have always believed that integrating RFID into medicines by enabling more accurate drug tracking and certification throughout the supply chain will help improve patient’s Safety, the goal is to reduce the error rate to almost zero. Based on the new low-cost inlay of ConnectIC FlexICs, and cooperation with PragmatIC and Schreiner MediPharm, we can help improve the safety and experience of patients through novel smart packaging applications. "