Viagra gets transmitters

2004-11-16 13:39

Washington - Viagra, Pfizer Inc's top-selling impotency drug, soon will carry radio transmitters to prevent counterfeiting, the company said on Monday.

The voluntary decision by Pfizer will make Viagra among the first medicines capable of being tracked electronically from production plant to pharmacy.

The company plans to start shipping bottles of Viagra with radio frequency identification, or RFID, by the end of next year, Pfizer spokesperson Bryant Haskins said.

"We're starting with Viagra because it is probably the best-known and one of the most counterfeited pharmaceutical products," Haskins said.

The Food and Drug Administration was expected to announce that other blockbuster drugs which have proved easy pickings for counterfeiters also soon will have RFID.

An FDA report earlier this year concluded that radio transmitters should lead the way in fighting drug counterfeiting.

But the Bush administration declined to order pharmaceutical companies to adopt the technology or other measures to combat what was described as a small but growing problem.

Still, administration officials said they expect widespread use of RFID by 2007.

On the net:

www.fda.gov

- AP