January 6, 2017, Las Vegas, Nev.— Silicon Valley and South Korea-based startup has designed LinkSquare, an affordable and easy to use spectrometer for medication identification. Attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show will see it in action at booth #50215 in Sands, Level 1, Hall Gin Las Vegas.
LinkSquare is a pocket-size smartphone-compatible device used to verify medications’ identity with the touch of a button. The user points LinkSquare at the medication to shine a bright light on it. The spectrometer collects data to form the medication’s “spectral fingerprint” — a unique reaction of the product’s molecular bonds to the light. By comparing it to known fingerprints in the smartphone app’s database, the user can verify the drug’s identity within seconds.
LinkSquare will be beneficial for pharmacies to ensure accuracy and speed up the process of filling prescriptions, as well as to enhance operational cost efficiency. The current system where a pharmacist is filling up to 25 prescriptions per hour can lead to dangerous errors. The risk of mix-ups is increased by the proliferation of so-called “look-alike sound-alike” (LASA) drugs. Current protection against medication mix-ups consists of having a second staff member, a licensed pharmacist,visually verify that the prescription is correct. This process is expensive, slow, and can still include errors.
LinkSquare frees up skilled personnel for patient consulting and allows less specialized employees to accurately and quickly verify the medications. It also serves as a risk mitigation tool that could lower insurance premiums for organizations.
Additionally, LinkSquare can help fight counterfeit drugs, especially in developing countries. The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) estimates that ten to 50 percent of medications sold there are either fake or fail to meet quality standards. Unfortunately, the resources and training needed to combat counterfeits are often in short supply in these areas.
LinkSquare doesn’t require sophisticated and expensive laboratory equipment or highly-trained personnel and can help flag suspicious medications or act as a secondary verification tool when coupled with other analytical techniques in the field.
LinkSquare currently uses both color and near-infrared data to distinguish medications. The next iteration of the device will feature Stratio’s proprietary shortwave infrared (SWIR) sensor to make the first ever low-cost, compact VIS/SWIR spectrometer (400-1700nm) in history. The sensor will double the infrared range of the LinkSquare, enabling advanced applications such as food fraud or trace explosives detection, and health monitoring.
“We are excited to show LinkSquare at the Consumer Electronics Show because we strongly believe that access to instant, reliable information about medications will lead to improved health care and help protect patients from counterfeit drugs,” said Jae Hyung Lee. Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Stratio.
Stratio,Inc. was founded in 2013 by four Stanford Electrical Engineering Ph.D. students and since then has been recognized at numerous startup competitions. Stratio received U.S. National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grants in 2014 and 2015.
To learn more about LinkSquare, visit: linksquare.io
Contact the company by email: [email protected]
Stratio HQ: 1863 Concourse Dr., San Jose, CA 95131, USA
Stratio Korea: Yeoksam-ro 156 6F Gangnam-gu, Seoul (06249), South Korea
