Gador Laboratories

Gador Laboratories, one of Argentina’s largest pharmaceutical providers, has been installing a radio frequency identification solution that will enable the company to track individual pharmaceutical products, as well as the pallets they are transported on.

The pilot program started in Buenos Aries in December of 2010 using a solution provided by systems integrator Telectrónica. The aim of the program was to determine if products that are tightly packed, moving at high speeds in an environment containing metal and liquids, could be read without interfering with the manufacturing process. The piloted system included one fixed impinj interrogator to read item-level RFID tags, as well as a second fixed impinj device to read the tags of cartons and pallets as the products are packed and shipped.

Gador sells 2 million pharmaceutical products on a monthly basis at its four locations in Argentina. The main reason the company sought out an automated system was to protect against counterfeiters in the supply chain between its facility and retailers. Protection against counterfeiters in the supply chain helps the company maintain product integrity and ensure the safety of its customers.

Gador’s manufacturing sites fill and label medication bottles at a very high rate of speed. Because of this, the company needed a system that would allow the application of the RFID tags, as well as the reading and encoding of those tags without reducing manufacturing efficiency.

The system proved that RFID could provide Gador with accurate data regarding the products that were packed and shipped. It also showed that RFID label technology could prevent the risk of counterfeit goods being introduced into the supply chain after the products were shipped, since counterfeiters would be unable to produce their own RFID tags with numbers matching those of the product as indicated in Gador's database.

Swedberg, Claire. “Gador to Track Drugs in Argentina.” RFID Journal. 24 Mar....