Cognex is answering a need anticipated in December following an EU exercise that discovered 34 million counterfeit pills in two months. Consultancy ARC Advisory projected at the time that a pill-level traceability law would pass within one year.
The Cognex answer is In-Sight Track & Trace, a ready-to-deploy data capture and verification solution for pharma unit-level product traceability. The package is a software add-on for the company's In-Sight machine-vision system.
The system combines Cognex code reading and verification software with a pre-configured job file and interface for data exchange with third party systems for full serialization. The company says in an announcement that the system is GS1 and FDA 21 CFR Part 11-ready.
Capabilities include reading such 2D and 1D barcodes as Data Matrix, GS1-128, GS1 DataBar and Pharmacode, as well as verifying correct ID code contents. The system also grades Data Matrix codes during production to detect changes in print quality.
- here's the announcement