The company calls the EOS-202 U9 the smallest form-factor RFID inlay for healthcare and pharmaceutical applications. It measures 20 millimeters by 10 millimeters (0.79 inch by 0.39 inch) and has gained Dose-ID Consortium ARC Spec S certification from Auburn University's RFID Lab. The inlay is intended to foster the adoption of RFID tagging for pharmaceutical companies and others in the healthcare supply chain, and it is now available in dry, wet and paper-face formats in large quantities.
The EOS-202 U9 inlays can be applied directly to vials, syringes and other drug products.
Dose-ID is a certifications body for tags in the pharmaceutical market. The consortium is working with Auburn's RFID Lab to ensure new UHF RFID products meet the ARC Spec S specification for use with medicines and medical devices. However, there are few uniform tag options that serve all form factors. Due to the small size of single medication units, the presence of liquids in some cases, and the multiple surface materials—ranging from glass to cardboard packaging—there are few universal inlays that work for all products, says Chris Reese, Tageos's head of product management.
For the past three months, Tageos has been designing the EOS-202 U9 inlay to provide Spec S quality performance in a small form factor, the company reports. It leverages NXP's UCODE 9 IC and a small-footprint antenna design. The antenna measures 20 millimeters by 10 millimeters (0.8 inch by 0.4 inch), while a wet inlay with adhesive measures 22 millimeters by 12 millimeters (0.9 inch by 0.5 inch). With the UCODE 9 chip, the inlay provides features that include auto-adjust technology, unique brand identifiers and pre-serialized 96-bit Electronic Product Code memory.
The inlay has been tested across all types of items and materials according to ARC Spec S for healthcare and pharmaceutical applications, says Jeremy Wade, Tageos's director of business development for the Americas, and has proven it can read tags at a rate near 100 percent. That performance quality is consistent, whether the tag is used on clear or amber liquid glass vials, clear glass powder vials, plastic or cyclic olefin polymer syringes, plastic syringe caps or plastic blow-fill-seal vials. Because of this versatility, the company expects the inlays to automatically identify single units at hospitals and pharmacies, as well as throughout the supply chain.
The Dose-ID Consortium, which helped to create the Sec S certification requirements, was founded by Kit Check, the largest provider of hardware and software used to read such tags in the healthcare environment. Spec S provides performance thresholds for pharmaceuticals used with Kit Check applications. Prior to the release of Spec S, Reese explains, multiple RFID solutions had been used to enable the tracking of medicines within healthcare environments, and the lack of a single universal specification made the rollout more complex. "Our objective," he states, was to achieve Spec S standards with the smallest dimensions possible."
For the past three months, Tageos has been designing the EOS-202 U9 inlay to provide Spec S quality performance in a small form factor, the company reports. It leverages NXP's UCODE 9 IC and a small-footprint antenna design. The antenna measures 20 millimeters by 10 millimeters (0.8 inch by 0.4 inch), while a wet inlay with adhesive measures 22 millimeters by 12 millimeters (0.9 inch by 0.5 inch). With the UCODE 9 chip, the inlay provides features that include auto-adjust technology, unique brand identifiers and pre-serialized 96-bit Electronic Product Code memory.
The inlay has been tested across all types of items and materials according to ARC Spec S for healthcare and pharmaceutical applications, says Jeremy Wade, Tageos's director of business development for the Americas, and has proven it can read tags at a rate near 100 percent. That performance quality is consistent, whether the tag is used on clear or amber liquid glass vials, clear glass powder vials, plastic or cyclic olefin polymer syringes, plastic syringe caps or plastic blow-fill-seal vials. Because of this versatility, the company expects the inlays to automatically identify single units at hospitals and pharmacies, as well as throughout the supply chain.
The Dose-ID Consortium, which helped to create the Sec S certification requirements, was founded by Kit Check, the largest provider of hardware and software used to read such tags in the healthcare environment. Spec S provides performance thresholds for pharmaceuticals used with Kit Check applications. Prior to the release of Spec S, Reese explains, multiple RFID solutions had been used to enable the tracking of medicines within healthcare environments, and the lack of a single universal specification made the rollout more complex. "Our objective," he states, was to achieve Spec S standards with the smallest dimensions possible."