Choose a Drug ! Aciphex Acomplia Actos Acyclovir Allegra Alli Diet Drug Altace Ambien Amoxicillin Atenolol Ativan Augmentin Avandia Avapro Baclofen Bactrim Biaxin Celebrex Celexa Cephalexin Champix Cialis Cipro Claritin D Clomid Coreg Depakote Diflucan Dilantin Diovan Doxycycline Effexor XR Elavil Estradiol Flomax Flonase Fluoxetine Folic Acid Fosamax Glucophage Hydroxyzine Ibuprofen Imitrex Keflex Lamisil Lasix Levaquin Levitra Lexapro Lipitor Mobic Naproxen Neurontin Nexium Norvasc Omeprazole Paxil Plavix Premarin Prevacid Promethazine Propecia Proscar Protonix Reductil Reglan Remeron Risperdal Singulair Sonata Synthroid Tamiflu Topamax Trazodone Ultra "C" tabs Ultra "L" tabs Ultra "V" tabs Ultram Viagra Wellbutrin Xenical Zithromax Zocor Zoloft Zyban Zyprexa Zyrtec

September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006

Opt-in for Free Newsletter, special discount offers, drugs information & latest pharmacy news.

Pfizer Extends RFID Tagging Beyond Viagra

Pfizer is stepping up its commitment to RFID technology. The giant pharmaceutical concern, which has been tagging every bottle of Viagra it produces since the end of 2005, announced this week that it is extending RFID to a second product line.

By the end of 2007, Pfizer expects to be tagging cases and pallets of over-the-counter pain reliever Celebrex. The company announced its plans for the first time at the RFID Healthcare Industry Adoption Summit in Washington, D.C.

Byron Bond, director of trade operations and customer service for Pfizer, expects the first RFID-enabled cases and pallets of Celebrex to roll off the manufacturing line by the fourth quarter of next year. Tagged product could work its way to wholesalers and pharmacies by the end of next year, or early in 2008.

Applying UHF Gen 2 tags to cases and pallets of Celebrex will be much more complicated than tagging Viagra, which is produced on a single production line in France. Celebrex will be produced on four high-speed lines at Pfizer's manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico.

"We wanted to roll out the technology being applied to Viagra somewhere else. Celebrex far outsells Viagra and it's a high-volume product," says Bond. "Within the next four to six years, we expect to have something close to a universal track and trace [e-pedigree system], so we realize we need to spread our RFID capabilities into other areas."

Although Bond could not say how many RFID tags will be needed for the Celebrex line, it will be significantly more than Pfizer uses for Viagra, given Celebrex's extremely high production volume. The company has no immediate plans to tag individual bottles of Celebrex, although they consider it an ideal candidate. Though tag prices have dropped 20 percent since Pfizer started tagging bottles of Viagra, Bond says they're still too costly to consider for use on the millions of individual bottles of Celebrex.

Pfizer says it chose Celebrex as the next participant in its RFID program for a number of reasons. To begin with, it wants to spread its RFID expertise beyond the single plant in France that produces all the U.S.-bound RFID-tagged Viagra. The company also says it deliberately chose Celebrex so that it will be forced to deal with the challenges of applying tags on a line that runs four times faster than Viagra's production line. Though it could have chosen Lipitor, another well-known Pfizer product that, like Viagra, is frequently targeted by counterfeiters, the company says tag prices make that out of the question right now. In fact, Bond refers to the Lipitor line as Pfizer's Holy Grail of tagging, since the drug is produced at an even higher speed than Celebrex.

Bond also announced that in the upcoming months, Pfizer will initiate an e-pedigree pilot with a trade partners using Viagra, and will also change the tag placement on its cases from the top of the case to the side. In addition, Pfizer plans to rigorously pursue the operational efficiencies to be gained from RFID relative to shipping and receiving, both internally and externally.

The company has even had discussion with the U.S. government about using RFID to improve the customs process for the Viagra that enters the country from France. Bond also hopes that the high volume of tagged cases of Celebrex moving through the supply chain will make it easier for Pfizer's trading partners to realize efficiency gains in their own operations.

Source: http://www.dcvelocity.com/