Purdue Pharma's Bottle-Tracking Program Helps Law Enforcement With Drug Thieves
By Cyndi Root
Law enforcement officials in New York City were able to stop thieves from stealing drugs from a pharmacy by using GPS-enabled decoy bottles. Purdue Pharma’s bottle tracking program is used in 33 states, but the robbery thwarting in NYC made national news as it was the first time it was used successfully in the Big Apple.
Using Global Positioning Satellite (GPS), the police tracked the pharmacy robber and confronted him, which resulted in the robber’s death. In a New York Times interview, Purdue spokesman, James W. Heins, said his company’s bottles “assisted in the arrest of 111 pharmacy robbery suspects across the country, some of whom have been implicated in multiple pharmacy robberies.”
Bottle-Tracking Technology
The New York police department was not the first to adopt the decoy bottles, but it was one of the first to publicize the program, theorizing that if thieves knew about it, they would be less likely to attack pharmacies. Other states have declined to publicize the bottles, saying that if the bad guys knew, they would be more likely to personally threaten and harm pharmacy workers.
Purdue makes the decoy bottles, in which a third party vendor places GPS-enabled chips, along with fake pills. The bottles weigh the same as other bottles and rattles as though real pills were contained in the bottles. The decoy bottles sit in a base cradle. When the bottle is lifted out of the base, the tracking signal is enabled, monitored through the Purdue-designed GPS satellite tracking system.
FDA Actions
The FDA is extremely motivated to curtail drug abuse, since opioid abuse is on the rise. The agency is carefully reviewing new applications and is on the lookout for new drugs that have abuse-resistant formulations. In 2013, it passed the Drug Quality and Security Act, with nationalized standards to track drugs. These new rules override state rules with a plan to give drugs a pedigree. Pharmaceutical companies would serialize the drugs with unique numbers or codes that attach to each individual pill, case, and pallet. While tracking drugs over their lifetime does not have the immediacy of finding a drug thief through GPS, FDA efforts are underway to curb drug abuse and theft through drug serialization.