Terry Shyu, MSE PhD Student, demonstrates use of nanopillars that reveal hidden images via condensation of fluid on the structures. Image credit: Joseph Xu
An outline of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic face appeared on the clear, plastic film when a researcher fogs it with her breath.
Terry Shyu, a doctoral student in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, was demonstrating a new high-tech label for fighting drug counterfeiting. While the researchers don’t envision movie stars on medicine bottles, but they used Monroe’s image to prove their concept.
Counterfeit drugs, which at best contain wrong doses and at worst are toxic, are thought to kill more than 700,000 people per year. While less than 1 percent of the U.S. pharmaceuticals market is believed to be counterfeit, it is a huge problem in the developing world where as much as a third of the available medicine is fake.
To fight back against these and other forms of counterfeiting, researchers at U-M and in South Korea have developed a way to make labels that change when you breathe on them, revealing a hidden image.
“One challenge in fighting counterfeiting is the need to stay ahead of the counterfeiters,” said Nicholas Kotov, the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Chemical Engineering who led the Michigan effort.
The method requires access to sophisticated equipment that can create very tiny features, roughly 500 times smaller than the width of a human hair. But once the template is made, labels can be printed in large rolls at a cost of roughly one dollar per square inch. That’s cheap enough for companies to use in protecting the reputation of their products—and potentially the safety of their consumers.
Read more . . .
The Latest on: Counterfeit medications
via Google News
The Latest on: Counterfeit medications
- Securing the supply chain is a global concern: Tripti Nakhareon December 2, 2019 at 4:35 am
Securing supply chain in view of spurious drugs The issue of counterfeit in spurious drugs is really big in the Indian and the export market. The export market care has been taken as the Indian ...
- UPS Employees Reportedly Ran Drug Operation For Ten Years Without Getting Caughton December 1, 2019 at 12:01 pm
The delivery service employees managed to bypass security measures on the job. For ten years, up to 11 UPS employees allegedly managed to run a drug delivery operation in which they were involved in ...
- UPS workers allegedly trafficked 1,000s of pounds of drugs, cash, and fake vapes across the countryon November 29, 2019 at 2:49 am
"They've been doing it for so long that they were truly comfortable that they were never going to get caught." ...
- UPS Employees Are Arrested in Scheme to Ship Drugs and Cashon November 27, 2019 at 6:12 pm
A UPS truck hauling trailers across southwestern Arizona. UPS drivers and supervisors in Tucson, Ariz., helped run an operation to traffic drugs and counterfeit THC vape pens, the authorities ...
- Navarro & Amin: Trump administration protects consumers by keeping dangerous counterfeit goods out of USon November 24, 2019 at 2:06 am
Over the course of four Mega Flex operations between July 16 and Oct. 23, CBP discovered more than a 1,000 parcels containing counterfeit goods, more than 170 parcels containing illicit drugs ...
- Leading-Edge Law: Beware of counterfeit products; if it’s too good to be true, it’s probably fakeon November 23, 2019 at 5:45 pm
The sale of counterfeit products can show up almost anywhere in Virginia. These items include cigarettes, prescription drugs (such as Viagra), CDs, DVDs, clothing, personal accessories such as purses ...
- Trump Warns a Flavor Ban Would Spawn Counterfeit Vaping Productson November 22, 2019 at 2:21 pm
Throughout, he circled back to his main concern that counterfeit products from China and Mexico would replace those made ... It’s a problem. You have the same problem with drugs, and everything else.” ...
- FDA: Online drug sales hinder drive vs counterfeit medson November 21, 2019 at 2:08 pm
The booming industry of online sales, particularly of medicines, is making it difficult for the government to combat the prevalence of counterfeit drugs, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official ...
- World’s largest counterfeit drug market ripe for disruptionon November 19, 2019 at 11:02 pm
The country’s booming pharmaceutical industry is fragmented, with critical supply chain gaps. © Getty Nigeria has made progress in the war against counterfeit drugs, with fake medicine reported to ...
- Fake money, counterfeiting equipment, drugs found lead to arrest of two people in Slidellon November 19, 2019 at 8:28 am
Counterfeit money and the computers and equipment used to make it was among items seized by St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's deputies who were serving a search warrant last month on a home on Slidell's ...
via Bing News
