Global market for RFID in healthcare, pharma to reach $1.7 bln by 2018

The new global report was released by a publisher of off-the-shelf market research namely Global Industry Analyts, Inc announcing that the global market for RFID in healthcare and pharmaceutical markets will reach $1.7 billion by the year 2018.

The report entitled RFID in Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals: A Global Strategic Business Report, GIA attributes the growth of major factors like the additional functionality offered by RFID when up against conventional technologies, technological advances, and rising issues counterfeiting and re-labeling of expired drugs in the pharma industry.

RFID is used in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries on demand for real-time locating systems (RTLS) and its use in the locating equipment, patients and staff, and in enhancing safety and efficiency of healthcare delivery.

Apart from this, tagging of drugs at item-level will wipe out the entry of counterfeit drugs and also allow pharma companies to point out the exact location of a particular stock in case of a recall, record when a patient has taken a drug and even communicate with them.

The growth is also driven by other factors like the rising adoption of technology in countries like the South Korea and the U.S. and also the drive to lessen operational losses.

Radio frequency identification is the use of a wireless non-contact system that uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data from a attached to an object, for the purposes of automatic identification and tracking.