Pharmaceutical excipient firm Colorcon has launched its on-dose authentication system SoteriaRx, which it says can help protect patients from potentially harmful drugs, and drugmakers from reputation-damaging counterfeits.

The platform of physicochemical identifiers (PCIDs) – a term coined by the FDA in guidance published several years ago – means that a medicine can be checked for authenticity anywhere in the supply chain, even if it has been removed from its packaging, says the company.

Colorcon has built SoteriaRx on the back of collaborations with TruTag Technologies and Applied DNA Sciences, which gave it access to silicon dioxide and DNA-based taggants, respectively, that are both Generally Recognised as Safe – or ‘GRAS’ – which means they can be incorporated in ingested products.