Tech Product News

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 70% of teens who have abused prescription drugs said they took them from friends or family. To address the problem, Locker Brand Inc of Las Vegas, Nevada, created the Rx Locker.

Originally the brainchild of celebrity physician Drew Pinsky, MD, the Rx Locker is a prescription vault designed for use in home medicine cabinets. With the help of a chrome 3-number combination lock, the sturdy plastic container can secure as many as 4 standard prescription vials.

A portion of the proceeds from each unit sold will be donated to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and The Hillsides Home for Children of Pasadena, California. The Rx Locker is available for the retail price of $14.99 and can be purchased online at www.RxLocker.com.

Marketed by Talyst of Bellevue, Washington, the AutoLabel System is the labeling element of the AutoPharm pharmacy inventory and workflow manager. The system’s unique patent-pending transfer labels ensure all prescriptions are marked with an easily readable barcode that can be moved from the original packaging to the patient-ready medication container.

Talyst’s labels are designed to fit virtually any medication, including traditionally difficult forms. Circle labels enable barcoding for multidose medications, such as ointments, eye drops, and inhalers. The transferable flag label enables safe, accurate tracking of injectables by allowing part of the barcoded label to be transferred from the medication’s original container to the syringe.

The AutoLabel is equipped with a backlit LCD display, an alpha-numeric keypad, 4 MB of Flash memory, 6 MB of SDRAM, and 1 compact flash slot. It also integrates seamlessly with other AutoPharm software and hardware components. For more information, visit www.talyst.com or call 877.4.TALYST.

TruTags, developed by TruTag Technologies of Honolulu, Hawaii, are safe, edible microtags that enable secure, costeffective tracking and authentication of food, medicines and medical products. TruTags make identifying fake drugs as simple as scanning a barcode.

Each TruTag microtag is made from a porous silicon wafer— generally regarded as safe by the FDA—that is etched with a unique “spectral barcode” chosen from over 1 trillion possibilities. A portable scanner can be used to read the code, which is then verified against information printed on the package and compared with a label stored in a secure database. The microtags can be mixed into sprays, coatings, inks, varnishes, or laminates and applied in or on a package, label, or security fiber.

Breaking a tagged item into smaller pieces will not compromise the information contained in the tag. The tags are also resistant to heat and inexpensive to produce—each item costs only fractions of a penny to label. For more information, visit www.trutags.com.

App Links Patients to Affordable Care

A new free application from the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA) helps connect patients with free or low-cost health care options in their communities. Available in both iPhone and BlackBerry versions, the app lets patients scroll through more than 2500 brand-name and generic prescription medicines offered by PPA programs or locate one of 10,000 clinics across the United States that provide free or discounted health care.

The application is part of a larger effort by the PPA, dubbed “PPA 2.0,” to expand its outreach using online resource. Patients without access to a smartphone can access the same information on the organization’s Web site at www.pparx.org. To download the app, visit www.pparx.org/en/mobile. â– 

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