PADs

The Problem

Substandard or falsified pharmaceuticals impact 6.6 billion people in LMICs. PADs detect products that contain the wrong type or quantity of ingredients. PADs are used with a phone app (the PADreader) and a database (VERIFY) that together track provenance and test results across multiple sites, speeding cooperation on problem products.

The Solution

The PAD system has four components: 1). the PAD is a paper analytical device, a "lab on paper" that generates a color bar code based on the chemical components of the antibiotic dosage form. 2). the PADreader is a cell phone app that snaps a photo of the PAD and reads the test result. 3). VERIFY is a software system that tracks sample data and test results; it is integrated with the PADreader. 4). The distributed pharmaceutical analysis laboratory, or DPAL, is a consortium of colleges and universities that for the past 10 years has provided HPLC analysis capacity for samples from LMICs at very low cost.