PAD project is highlighed in C&E News!
Interview in Chemical and Engineering News highlights our group's work to detect substandard and falsified pharmaceuticals.
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Many of the pharmaceuticals that are purchased in the developing world are substandard or outright fake drugs. Although there is no global system for monitoring the quality of medicine, study after study reveals pervasive poor quality and products that are worthless or even harmful to patients. Many countries in the developing world do not have the technological infrastructure or regulatory resources to keep low quality medicines off the market shelves. And since the pharmaceutical trade is a lucrative global market, low quality medicine can cross borders and harm people anywhere in the world.
Paper analytical devices (PADs) are test cards that can quickly determine whether a drug tablet contains the correct medicines. They are cheap and easy to use. They don't require power, chemicals, solvents, or any expensive instruments, so they can be deployed rapidly at large scale if pharmaceutical quality is doubtful.
You can obtain PADs from our storefront, Paper Analytics LLC. The PADreader app for Android phones is available free at the Google Play store.
Negligence by manufacturers
Deliberate falsification by manufacturers or distributors
By sharing our results directly with medical regulatory agencies, we help them quickly discover poor quality medicines in their markets. This enables them to negotiate with manufacturers and distributors from a position of knowledge and to take other regulatory and legal actions to protect patients from poor quality products.
In the developing world, most buyers have to trust what the seller tells them about the quality of the pharmaceuticals they purchase. Unscrupulous manufacturers and distributors know that there is little chance that their medicines will be screened in a lab. These paper test cards don't need a lab, and they will enable people all over the world to quickly detect low quality medicines and remove them from the market.
Interview in Chemical and Engineering News highlights our group's work to detect substandard and falsified pharmaceuticals.
…
The Scott test has been used for over 50 years as a presumptive test for cocaine. It involves a series of reagent additions and color changes...and if it's not done and interpreted correctly, it can send innocent people to jail. This crystal structure now published in Acta Cryst E gives insight into what's going on in the test.
Bis(N,N-diethyl-4-methyl-4-piperazine-1-carboxamide) tetrakis(isothiocyanato-κN)cobalt(II), a model compound for the blue color developed in the Scott test. Oliver, A. G., Lockwood, T.-L. E., Zinna, J. & Lieberman, M. (2023). Acta Cryst. E79, 163-166