By BILL POWER Staff Reporter
Many people who rely on sensitive medications were among those who suffered when hurricane Juan punched through Nova Scotia in 2003.
Pharmacies were among the thousands of homes and businesses that lost power and some drugs requiring refrigeration or strict humidity controls were tossed out due to quality concerns.
It was from this cloud of disruption that a Hants County software developer detected a niche for new technology to monitor medication storage facilities.
"After the hurricane many medications had to be pitched, creating significant disruption of the supply chain," Frank Hennigar of Ellershouse, president of the Food Systems Group of the Americas Inc., said Monday.
"People had to wait until stocks could be replenished."
The RxCool medication monitoring system developed by Food Systems Group gets medication stocks moving faster by providing an immediate alert of any potentially harmful environmental change at a storage location.
The system gets its first test drive at an undisclosed Dartmouth pharmaceutical warehouse in March.
"The system protects a pharmacy from dispensing something that might be unsafe and provides for an immediate response if there is a power interruption or equipment malfunction," said Mr. Hennigar.
He said RxCool is designed to protect medications in pharmacies, warehouses and in transit, and could potentially be used in any application involving temperature-sensitive products.
The system uses remote wireless sensors and satellite communications to signal an alert over the Internet of a significant temperature or humidity change.
Most other systems provide an after-the-fact alert, said Mr. Hennigar. An online alert allows a distributor to immediately order replacement product.
He said RxCool is a "logical extension" of his firm’s research on "traceability," an emerging technology with applications in the food and pharmaceutical fields where products must be traced through manufacturing and distribution.
The system can monitor a refrigerator being used as a medication cooler, a walk-in cooler or an entire warehouse. It could also be used in delivery vehicles, said Mr. Hennigar.
"RxCool provides an objective, documented way for the pharmacist to calculate when a medication is no longer safe or effective," he said.
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