$2m grant for microfluidics-based drug tester

Portable anti-counterfeiting device PharmaChk has been given a $2m grant to hasten its development as a commercial product.

PharmaChk (formerly referred to as PharmaCheck) is being developed alongside researchers at Boston University to detect and quantify active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in medicines, according to the US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP).

The device has the potential to "revolutionize how medicines regulators, customs agents, procurement agencies, warehouse personnel, health facilities, and other providers throughout the world detect poor-quality medicines," says USP.

Other methods to screen for substandard or counterfeit products in the field are limited in their ability to quickly and accurately quantify the actual amount of APIs in a sample, as well as to determine how quickly that active ingredient dissolves so it can work in the body as intended.

A few weeks, the first pilot study using PharmaChk on medicine samples was conducted at USP's Center for Pharmaceutical Advancement and Training (CePAT) in Accra, Ghana.

The pilot study was conducted on samples of the antimalarial medicine artesunate, collected from public hospital/clinics, private retail/wholesale pharmacies, and informal outlets in Accra.

USP said the scientists behind the pilot "are excited about early results from the pilot study", adding that plans are already underway to further refine PharmaChk and to use the device to test samples of other medicines collected from the field.

PharmaChk is a shoebox-sized microfluidic device which quantitatively analyses active ingredient levels and other characteristics, such as the dissolution rate of tablets, to identify whether a drug meets quality criteria. It can be applied equally to solid oral dosage forms and liquid suspensions.

"The toll that poor-quality medicines take on global public health - particularly among the most vulnerable populations in the developing world - is staggering, with 99 per cent of all maternal deaths occurring in developing countries," said USP's chief executive Ronald Piervincenzi.

"Helping to ensure patient access to good quality drugs-including those used for neonatal care, to fight infectious diseases or to maintain good maternal health-is a leading priority for USP," he added.

PharmaChk is being developed with support from the Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) programme, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the latest seed funding comes from the Saving Lives at Birth charity.