Flakes vs fakes: pharma patent for JDSU's Charms

Optical technology specialist JDS Uniphase has been awarded a US patent for a technology designed to authenticate pharmaceutical products down to the unit dose level.

The latest patent (No. 7,550,197) specifically covers use of optically-variable or taggant flakes in the pharmaceutical arena. JDSU first introduced the technology under the Charms trademark in 2007 to serve the electronics and fast-moving consumer goods sectors.

JDSU is already an established player in the pharmaceutical brand protection space with its SecureShift range of colour-shifting inks which can be used on labels, closures, shrink-wraps, blister packs, and holograms or in the plastic of a bottle. 

The Charm taggants take the form of non-toxic, inorganic flakes - often made with a metallic, reflective layer, which can be customised with logos, made with colour-shifting inks or chemicals which fluoresce under non-visible radiation, or formed into a distinctive shape. In their simplest form they can be evaluated in the field using a simple, low-cost microscope.

The accompanying image shows a flake against a background of colour-shifting ink pigment particles.

The flakes are placed on the surface or inside pharmaceutical dosage forms, such as tablets, capsules or even ointments. The patent indicates they can be applied to a product in a coating, varnish or ink using simple printing technologies, or dispersed within it.

Clearly, application of the technology to pharmaceuticals raises issues that do not affect other products, not least that they must be safe to ingest.

The patent indicates that “inorganic compounds like silica, titania, alumina, are used in non-toxic authentication flakes, since they are inert and safe to ingest, and they are persistent and detectable by their difference from the organic materials of the coating or tablet under a microscope.”

The amount of material that needs to be added to pharmaceuticals can be small - in the microgram range - and the quantities can be reduced further by spot-printing the flakes onto pills or capsules.

JDSU notes that adding 10,000 flakes to a pill, a quantity which ensures they are easy to identify on the surface, should typically only correspond to around 0.1% of the tablet weight.

A spokesperson for the company told SecuringPharma.com that for the moment the technology is being applied on packaging only and so far has not been used commercially in any ingestible product.


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