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Volume: 31 | Article ID: art00081_1
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Countering Counterfeiting of Drugs: Unique Fluorescent Inks for Direct Printing onto Pharmaceuticals
  DOI :  10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2015.31.1.art00081_1  Published OnlineJanuary 2015
Abstract

Counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals is a growing and extremely concerning problem as supported by the increased prevalence, revenues (in the tens of billions), and sophistication of counterfeit medications. Current anti-counterfeit technologies for pharmaceuticals are generally easy for counterfeiters to imitate and typically rely on printing on packages, engraving or standard printing on pills, and pedigrees (only adopted by a few governmental organizations). Considering the dire impacts of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, including loss of life, an extra layer of difficult to replicate anti-counterfeit technology could alert medical personnel and consumers of potential counterfeit pharmaceuticals prior to consumption. In this contribution, two “non-toxic” fluorescent compounds (fluorescein and tryptophan) where formulated into inks for direct printing on medications. Fluorescein is a compound currently used in eye surgeries and tryptophan is a non-toxic amino acid. These inks were successfully printed on a number of medications and evaluated for authentication purposes. The success of these inks may ultimately lead to an easy way for medical personnel and consumers to identify counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

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  Cite this article 

Brian A. Logue, Jamie Kern, Shelby Altena, Jacob Petersen, Sierra Rassmusan, Robert Oda, Jon J. Kellar, "Countering Counterfeiting of Drugs: Unique Fluorescent Inks for Direct Printing onto Pharmaceuticalsin Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP31),  2015,  pp 371 - 374,  https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2015.31.1.art00081_1

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