Researchers are developing a new way to customize prescription dosages with quick response codes.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have teamed up with peers at Finland’s Åbo Akademi University to use edible QR codes as a tool for customizing prescription drug dosages. The new technique is designed to help personalize the way patients are dosed with their medications for greater precision and improved results.
The researchers have already created a white edible material on which a drug-based QR code is printed.
The researchers have come up with a white material that is edible without any active substances. On it, edible QR codes are printed, containing the actual drug the patient requires. This style of dosing is under development in order to help ensure patients’ unique needs for medication will be met based on the way their bodies react to the same amount of the active compounds within their medication.
The scientists feel this use of QR codes is highly promising for improving modern medicine. They see an especially practical use for the quick response code based dosing in more delicate illnesses that must be treated with extreme caution when administering prescription drugs.
The edible QR codes also have the potential for reducing the presence of fake medications and malpractice.
The QR code itself makes it possible to store data for a particular prescription drug, eliminating the need to be restricted to standard dosages to medications that may not be ideal for a given patient, particularly one with more delicate treatment needs. The barcode makes it possible to understand the specific state and components of the drug to be administered.
“This technology is promising, because the medical drug can be dosed exactly the way you want it to. This gives an opportunity to tailor the medication according to the patient getting it. Simply doing a quick scan, you can get all the information about the pharmaceutical product. In that sense it can potentially reduce cases of wrong medication and fake medicine,” explained University of Copenhagen Department of Pharmacy’s assistant professor Natalja Genina.
Genina stated that the research goal is now to make it possible for a typical printer to apply the edible QR codes to the white material, essentially adding the drug to the pills.