Purdue's packaging line process

Used for the management of moderate to severe pain, OxyContin is an opioid agonist and a Schedule II controlled substance with an abuse liability similar to morphine.

Mike Celentano explained to the Brand-Protection Packaging Forum audience that the line runs 100 to 110 bottles/min. As bottles are conveyed, the RFID wraparound paper labels are applied much like any label. An in-line reader checks to make sure the RFID tag in the label is readable and that the tag matches the fixed portion of the serial number. The fixed portion of the number carries information about the drug, serving as the National Drug Code, Celentano says. The variable portion of the serial number carries unique numbering. If either portion of the serial number doesn’t check out properly, the bottle is rejected.

After labeling, OxyContin bottles are conveyed through a shrink wrapper and are wrapped in six-packs, with eight of these packs manually placed into a shipping case. The case is also RFID-labeled. As the closed case conveys downstream, a machine reads 49 total tags, one for the case, and one for each of the 48 bottles. “At this point, we’re making an association between the parent [case] and children [bottles], storing that in a database. That’s what we call our commissioning event for the bottles, as they’re being ‘born’ with a license plate,” says Celentano.