Pharmaceutical Product Identification

In the modern American home, medicine cabinets are overflowing with pharmaceuticals. Sometimes pills may become separated from their original bottles, making it difficult to identify the medication. However, pharmaceutical companies and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have developed ways to make pharmaceutical products identifiable without the labels on their bottles.

Pill Design

• One way to identify a pharmaceutical products is by looking at its design. Pills have unique combinations of shapes, colors and alpha-numeric imprints. Consumers can check books and websites to match pills by the unique designs.

FDA

• The FDA also offers ways to identify pharmaceuticals. For example, a consumer can use information from a pharmacy bottle to find specific information about the medication using the National Drug Code Directory.

Private Services

• The Internet offers a number of websites to help patients identify pharmaceutical products. These services allow users to input information such as color, shape and imprint. That allows users to search pharmaceutical databases while search criteria narrows the possible pills. A picture appears that can then be compared to the pill.