Investigating Potential Effects of RFID Systems on the Molecular Structure of the Human Insulin

The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a wireless technology that is becoming more and more important as auto-identification solution for many application scenarios. The adoption of this innovative technology in the pharmaceutical sector promises to solve several problems related to tracing and tracking systems at item level. Unfortunately, there are still some barriers limiting the large-scale deployment of RFID technologies. One of these is related to very interesting research topics on the evaluation of potential effects of electromagnetic fields on drugs. In detail, this work aimed to analyze the impact of UHF RFID devices, used in tracing systems, on the molecular structure and potency of a commercial human insulin preparation, ActrapidTM. In order to investigate possible induced alterations of molecular structure, the Reverse Phase-High Pressure Liquid Chromatography and the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy have been mainly used in the experimental protocol. To obtain some indications about drug performance, in vitro cell proliferation assays have been also conducted. The experimental results, achieved by a protocol combining an accurate structural analysis on 5 min to 24 h irradiated drug samples with functional in vitro assays, have shown that the electromagnetic field generated by UHF RFID devices does not cause significant effects on ActrapidTM insulin. These findings are strongly encouraging the use of RFID-based technologies for item-level tracing systems in the pharmaceutical supply chain.