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Falsified antimalarial pharmaceuticals are a worldwide problem with negative public health implications. Here, we develop a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) protocol to recognize substandard and falsified antimalarial drugs present in commercially available tablets. After recording SERS spectra for pure chloroquine, primaquine, and doxycycline, SERS is used to measure these drugs formulated as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in the presence of common pharmaceutical caplet excipients. To demonstrate the viability of our approach, a red team study was also performed where low-quality and falsified formulations of all three drugs presented as unknowns were identified. These data in conjunction with promising results from a portable Raman spectrometer suggest that SERS is a viable technique for on-site analysis of drug quality.
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This content will become publicly available on August 19, 2026
Disintegration Fingerprinting: A low-cost and easy-to-use tool for identifying substandard and falsified medicines
There is an urgent need for low-cost and simple-to-use tools for identifying substandard and falsified medicines. In this work we demonstrate “Disintegration Fingerprinting” (DF), a technique that identifies pills, tablets, caplets, and other solid-dosage drugs based on how the drug disintegrates and dissolves in liquid. The DF hardware consists of a water-filled transparent plastic cup atop a conventional magnetic stirrer. An inexpensive sensor mounted on the outside of the cup shines infrared light into the cup and measures the amount of light that is reflected back to the sensor. When a pill is added to the stirred water, the pill begins to disintegrate into particles that swirl around inside the cup. Whenever one of these particles passes near the infrared sensor, the particle reflects additional light back to the sensor and creates a millisecond-duration peak in a plot of sensor output vs. time. The number of particles in the water changes over time as the particles continue to disintegrate and (in some cases) eventually dissolve away. By plotting the number of particles detected vs. time, we create a Disintegration Fingerprint that can be used to identify the drug product. In a proof-of-concept study, we used DF to analyze 96 pills from 32 different drug products (including antibiotics, opioid and non-opioid analgesics, antidepressants, anti-inflammatories, antiemetics, antihistamines, decongestants, muscle relaxants, expectorants, sleep aids, cold medicines, antacids, hormonal birth control, and dietary supplements, as well as a simulated falsified drug product). We found that DF correctly identified 90% of these pills, and the technique can even distinguish name-brand and generic versions of the same drug. By providing a fast (60-minute), inexpensive ($33 USD), and easy-to-use tool for identifying substandard and falsified medicines, Disintegration Fingerprinting can play an important role in the fight against fake drugs.
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- PAR ID:
- 10638794
- Publisher / Repository:
- medRxiv
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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