Fresenius Kabi: First to provide healthcare providers with GS1 EPC-enabled RFID tagging at the dosage level

Fresenius Kabi, a global healthcare company, launched an ambitious program to support healthcare providers and become the first in its industry to tag vials of medication using Electronic Product Code-enabled radio frequency identification (EPC/RFID) technology.

The company’s goals: Each container of medication would have an encoded EPC that carries the globally unique product code, unique serial number, expiration date and batch/lot number. The product code would consist of the Global Trade Item Number® (GTIN®) with an embedded National Drug Code (NDC), which identifies the manufacturer. The RFID tags would have to comport with the dielectric properties of the drugs, not impede manufacturing speed, and eventually be brought to scale across the company’s extensive portfolio of pharmaceuticals.