Edible QR Codes Could be the Future of Medicine

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QR Codes are incredibly versatile, since they can be used in a vast number of applications. In some Asian countries, QR codes are used extensively in some apps like WeChat and on WhatsApp, it is used to link your phone to your desktop web client.

However, some scientists want to push QR codes into an area that you thought the technology couldn’t be used: Medicine.

In a new study by researchers from University of Copenhagen and colleagues from Abo Akademi University in Finland, they have developed a white edible material which they have printed a QR code consisting of a drug.

“This technology is promising, because the medical drug can be dosed exactly the way you want it too. This gives an opportunity to tailor the medication according to the patient getting it.”

The shape of the QR code enables the storage of data in the drug itself where a quick scan can get all the information about the pharmaceutical product.

Digitizing how we take drugs from a hospital using simple QR codes could be huge. Currently, we use the old fashion system of obtaining prescription drugs from the pharmacy that have explicit instructions of how to take it and in some cases, it can be hard to know if the drugs are real or fake.

The researchers hope that in the future, a regular printer will be able to apple the drug in the pattern of a QR code and the edible material would need to be produced in advance.