Thin Film Electronics ASA (“Thinfilm”) announced that Global Factories, a global market leader in the field of medicine pouch verification, will use Thinfilm printed memory labels for security and authentication in its new Vandenbrink Blister Packaging Machine (VBM). (View VBM video).

The VBM provides automated filling of Global Factories’ unit- and multi-dose blister cards, which securely store patient medication and provide a visual blueprint of required daily intake. The Thinfilm Memory labels will enable Global Factories’ clients to confirm authenticity of the VBM blister cards, ensuring only safe and qualified materials are used in the system. In addition to packing and checking of blister cards, the VBM uses a patented verification technique that makes distribution of medicine safer and more efficient than ever before.

"We’re excited to partner with an innovative leader like Global Factories,” says Davor Sutija, Thinfilm’s CEO. “The VBM system is a breakthrough in pharmaceutical packaging. In securing the authenticity of unit- and multi-dose blister cards for the VBM, we are contributing to a key milestone in pharmaceutical dispensing. Our printed electronics technology and manufacturing processes are able to deliver a cost-effective, highly scalable and easy-to-integrate solution for Global Factories.”

Thinfilm’s Smart Consumables solution features uncopiable, printed re-writable memory labels. Thinfilm Memory has previously been deployed in-field for product verification, including retail shipments earlier this year for protection of luxury goods. Global Factories will now extend use of Thinfilm memory to pharma security applications. Global Factories revolutionary VBM will be launched during the first quarter of 2015. Additional Global Factories’ blister cards featuring Thinfilm memory label systems will be introduced to key global markets throughout 2015.

"At Global Factories, we take our clients’ need for secure, reliable medicine distribution seriously, and try to be innovative in all that we do,” says Richard van der Brink, CEO of Global Factories. “Thinfilm Memory offers significant advantages over any other electronic verification solution we investigated, and gives us a highly secure label through the use of proprietary printed electronics technology. It’s a new solution which adds value to the needs of our clients all over the world, and represents the first step in our roadmap for using printed electronics in innovative systems to help improve overall patient adherence.”