Bioinkjet Printing and Protein Tagging of Camouflaged Biosafe Quick Response Codes for Medicine Authentication

Abstract

Online pharmacies and social media platforms are responsible for the growing presence of counterfeit medicines, and the verification and authentication of dosage levels are imperative for protecting individual medicines. However, the existing anticounterfeit methods for medicines and exterior box-level protection are often limited, and they focus on pharmaceutical supply chains instead of empowering patients. Here, bioprinting and taggant construction of camouflaged biosafe quick response (QR) codes are introduced for on-dose (or in-dose) medicine security, integrated with the dosage form. Machine-readable color QR codes contain concealed invisible patterns with biologically safe near-infrared absorption properties, which help enhance the security of conventional QR codes. The reported bioinkjet printing and protein taggant construction guarantee printability, imperceptibility, stability, biocompatibility, digestibility, and tamper resistance to be an inherent part of each unit of medicine in solid dosage formats. Camouflaged biosafe QR code taggants can offer various medicine security applications including anticounterfeit measures, authentication features, track-and-trace, and serialization at the dosage level. This approach is expected to empower patients to play an active role in fighting illicit medicines and pharmaceutical products.