Viagra & Chips

Pfizer recently announced the start of its trial of RFID tagging bottles of Viagra in the US, to prevent counterfeiting. It is worth noting that the tags are for pharmacists to check (although very few pharmacies have RFID equipment yet) and the pills would be re-packed into amber vials for consumers - to avoid privacy concerns.

The RFID tag will contain the EPC, which can be checked against a database of issued EPCs. This can help prevent fraud and diversion. Importantly, however, RFID tags are not themselves counterfeit-proof, and can be copied - so Pfizer is probably using a one-time use database, that can only be accessed by authorized users. Pfizer will be including a 2D datamatrix in the event that the RFID tag fails (how many pharmacies have 2D datamatrix readers?).

"Viagra was selected for the RFID project because it has been a major target for counterfeiters,"
Pfizer said in a statement.

The company plans to spend about $5 million on the project for RFID labels.