Helping Pharma Help People: New NFC Tags Boost Safety and Adherence

Pharmaceutical companies are using Near Field Communication (NFC) with tags integrated into pharmaceutical labels, packages and delivery devices in order to address two different but equally important challenges in medication.

In one instance, they’re using the advanced security and tamper-detection features of new NFC tags to assure identity and safety in the supply chain, so it’s easier to confirm the authenticity of a medication and verify that it’s safe to use.

At the same time, pharmaceutical companies are using the latest NFC features to improve medication delivery and increase adherence, making it easier for patients to follow dosing regimens and manage chronic illnesses.

NXP’s recently announced NTAG 22x DNA and NTAG 22x DNA StatusDetect ICs, both of which are well-suited for both use cases. These latest additions to NXP’s already extensive portfolio of NTAG solutions are ready for mass-volume implementation and offer certified security with battery-less sensing to support tamper detection and other functions, such as liquid fill level monitoring.

In this blog, we take a closer look at how NTAG IC advancements can protect the integrity of pharmaceuticals while making it easier for patients to use medications more effectively through intelligent delivery systems.

Ensuring Originality and Safety

Today’s pharmaceutical companies struggle to protect their supply chains from the presence of counterfeit products and illegally diverted drugs. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that counterfeit medicines worth 73 billion euros  (USD 79.26 billion) are traded annually. In a comprehensive report  from 2017, the WHO estimated that 1 in 10 medical products circulating in low- and middle-income countries were either substandard or falsified. This problem has only grown more widespread since then, as global supply chains become more complex, meaning products manufactured in one country may be packaged in a second country and distributed across borders to be marketed or sold to consumers in a third. The growth of e-commerce also contributes to this trend by making it easier to purchase medicines online, often from unauthorized sources. This can result in health risks and loss of trust for the consumer, can impact revenues and can cause reputational damage to the brand owners. In 2020, the WHO identified the issue of counterfeit drugs as one of the urgent healthcare challenges for the next decade,  reporting counterfeit products from all regions of the world.

NFC Tags Add Security

Pharmaceutical companies are accountable for ensuring that their medicine is safe when it arrives in the hands of patients. NFC tags help address risks of falsified or diverted products by adding an extra level of protection—helping companies manage their supply chains beyond mere serialization. Each tag has its own unique identity with other built-in electronic functionalities and can be tracked throughout the supply chain, including the last mile to the patient, thereby creating a traceable, verifiable provenance. Counterfeits become easier to spot, since anyone—brand inspectors, pharmacists and consumers—can confirm product authenticity by simply tapping the label or package with their phone, even without having to download an app. Patients can play a part in verifying their own medication and can become more deeply engaged with their medication supplier by taking advantage of on-demand access to dosage instructions, new product updates, recognition of side effects, digital tools and more.

NXP Takes Tag Security to the Next Level

With the new NTAG 22x DNA and NTAG 22x DNA StatusDetect, security goes to the next level. Each IC is Common Criteria-certified to EAL3+ and uses Secure Unique NFC (SUN) message authentication with AES-128 cryptography, so taps cannot be cloned. In the NTAG 22x DNA, mutual authentication can add an extra layer of protection, making it that much harder to carry out unauthorized tag access or malicious status changes.

The NTAG 22x DNA and NTAG DNA 22x StatusDetect can also detect tampering, so it’s harder to steal, dilute or replace genuine products. Tamper detection can use one of two methods: conductive or capacitive. The choice depends on the implementation, so developers have greater flexibility in their designs.

• Conductive Tamper Detection:

A conductive tamper detection tag uses a conductive loop that, when broken, irreversibly writes the “once opened” status into the chip’s memory and sends the open status to the cloud (as part of a secured NFC message) - all with the tap of an NFC-enabled phone. It’s an ideal way to protect any labels or seals affixed to the product.

• Capacitive Tamper Detection

With capacitive tamper detection, upon readout, the tag measures the capacitance and compares it to pre-configured limits. When these limits are exceeded, the “open” status is added to the secured NFC message. The capacitive approach is well-suited for integration into physical products, such as caps, and is also harder for fraudsters to reconstruct.

The combination of certified security and dual-mode tamper detection in the NTAG 22x DNA and NTAG 22x DNA StatusDetect helps pharmaceutical companies safeguard the supply chain, protect their brands and combat counterfeiting, while also making it easier for inspectors, pharmacists, healthcare professionals and consumers to prove the originality, origin and integrity of a medication – all with the tap of a phone.

Managing Chronic Conditions

Beyond the presence of counterfeit and illicit drugs, another challenge for the healthcare industry as a whole, and pharmaceutical companies in particular, is the global increase in chronic conditions, and how best to treat the growing presence of persistent, long-lasting illnesses.

According to the ongoing international Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, chronic conditions represent some of the most significant trends in human health. In their report from 2019, the GBD found that chronic conditions have increased steadily over the past decade and now account for millions of deaths worldwide each year. They report that metabolic conditions, which include obesity, diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol have had the greatest cumulative impact on health, but other long-term conditions such as asthma, arthritis and mental disorders are also on the rise. Treatments for chronic illnesses typically involve long-term use of one or more medications, and patients are often dealing with multiple chronic conditions at once.

Staying on track with one’s therapy isn’t always easy. Patients don’t always get prescriptions filled on time, don’t always understand the directions for proper dosing and don’t always remember to take medications on time. This problem of not following courses of treatment accurately, in what’s known as medication adherence, has been a recognized issue in healthcare for some time. The WHO Health Report 2003 and a number of other studies show that, in developed countries, patients with chronic conditions have adherence rates of 50% - 60%. Lapses in medication adherence not only lead to adverse health outcomes for individuals, but have the broader impact of raising everyone’s healthcare costs.

To help manage adherence and improve patient outcomes, companies are adding digital capabilities to their drug-delivery devices. In 2018, the research group Fortune Business Insights reported that the market for global connected drug-delivery devices stood at USD 361.1 million,  and projected it would grow to USD 4,062.7 million by 2026, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35.4%.

NFC Tags Can Boost Adherence

Here again, NFC tags can help. When added to a drug delivery system, such as an injector or inhaler, NFC tags can improve patient safety and adherence whilst enhancing better user experiences.

A simple tap of a phone to a tagged product can create a link to documents and videos that explain how to use the drug, what side effects to look for, interactions to avoid and other useful information. Using an app, patients can also set reminders for their daily treatments.

Adding an NFC reader to a multi-use refillable device can help with adherence as well. The reader can automatically authenticate the NFC tag on the drug consumable such as a cartridge to ensure it’s from a trusted source—and when the tag is encoded with the drug’s expiration date, the device can also confirm it’s still viable. After each dose, the reader device can record the action, and the tag can store an incremental counter value. Bluetooth^® connectivity can ensure data can sync with a patient’s mobile app or store it in the cloud, so users can track their adherence history and can get personalized feedback. With patient permission, information can also be shared with the patient’s healthcare providers.

NXP Makes Adherence Even Easier

With the NTAG 22x DNA StatusDetect, additional applications become possible. The battery-free ICs can use their capacitive sensing interface to detect changes in environmental conditions like moisture or liquid fill level. Changes in capacitance are captured with an NFC phone upon a tap and interpreted with a software application. For instance, if values are outside a pre-defined range, users can monitor things like moisture or liquid fill level.

Battery-free capacitive sensing means you can tap an NFC-enabled, smart bandage and assess its level of moisture, without having to remove the bandage - which could assist in wound healing. Or, you can verify the fill level of a smart injectable dose monitoring device such as a syringe to ensure medication is taken properly. Consumers can also check the fill level in opaque packaging, or receive a reminder for repeat prescriptions via an app, whenever levels are getting below a threshold. The alert can even link to an authorized site for ordering so patients can be certain they’ll buy from a genuine, trusted source.

Simple, scalable digital condition sensing has another use, too, in clinical studies, where it can be used to achieve compliance and generate trustworthy results.

The Latest in a Leading Portfolio

The NTAG 22x DNA and NTAG 22x DNA StatusDetect offer several compelling benefits when it comes to protection and adherence, but they’re just one part of NXP’s broader approach to using NFC tags in the pharmaceutical and medical-device industry.

For example, our NTAG SmartSensors combine NFC with an Arm^® Cortex^® M0+ processor and integrated sensor for even more advanced capabilities, such as intelligent temperature monitoring. An injection pen can signal when a dose is at room temperature so the injection is less painful to administer. Or, the vial containing a vaccine that requires careful handling can generate a detailed data log that proves the vaccine has been kept at the right temperature in the cold chain and is still viable. These kinds of logs can be used to fine-tune fulfillment by identifying any systemic handling issues in the broader supply chain or at the point of care.

What’s more, the NTAG portfolio is only a portion of what NXP offers for NFC in the IoT. As a leading provider of NFC solutions of all kinds, we remain at the forefront of the technology. For example, we offer passive IC tags (with both proximity and vicinity read ranges), connected IC tags, sensing IC tags, certified secure elements and reader ICs. Together, they create IoT deployments that let devices connect, sense, think and act.

Learn more about how we're using NFC and NTAGs to help pharmaceutical companies help patients by downloading the latest NTAG 22x DNA and NTAG 22x DNA StatusDetect brochure.