New products introduced at ACHEMA 2012

As the ACHEMA exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany, draws to a close, we highlight some of the new product developments in the areas of anti-counterfeiting and traceability of medicines.

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Atlantic Zeiser launched new Personalization Management Platform (PMP) software for track-and-tract and anti-counterfeiting applications in the pharmaceutical sector. The PMP is able to control the entire production, identification and dispatch process of pharmaceutical packages, according to the firm, and can be embedded into adjacent and higher level software systems such as MES (manufacturing execution system) and ERP (enterprise resource planning), or even used as an MES itself. "Product tracking and authentication and/or real-time checking are critical components of comprehensive anti-counterfeiting solutions for the pharmaceutical industry," said Atlantic Zeiser in a statement.

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Wolke Inks & Printers introduced its new m600 touch coding system at ACHEMA that is designed to help companies meet the forthcoming transition in Germany from the old PZN code to the proposed GS1-compliant 2D datamatrix or Pharmacy Product Number (PPN) code, in order to come into compliance with the EU falsified medicines directive. The m600 features a graphic touch screen user interface and can handle high-resolution prints up to 600dpi, allowing it to tackle a variety of applications " from simple date and batch coding down to exacting serialisation tasks", according to the company.

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Optel Vision showcased its TrackSafe system for pharmaceutical packaging lines, which serialises and labels individual cartons or bottles - using 1D codes, 2D codes or RFID tags - and launched a new planning service to help companies to prepare for track-and-trace initiatives around the world. The service includes gap analysis study, infrastructure planning, execution planning and review of all current requirements necessary to bring companies up to speed for serialisation, said Optel.

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Heuft introduced a new version of its VX OCR optical character recognition system for verifying 2D codes and alphanumeric product marking on folding cartons and other pharmaceutical packaging. The system reads codes and up to four lines of optical characters accurately - even at high line outputs of 1,200 packages per minute - and compares their contents simultaneously with each other, according to the company. The system removes incorrectly coded pharmaceutical packaging from the production flow consistently, and so "makes an effective contribution towards ensuring protection against counterfeiting medicines", according to Heuft.

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