SICPA: Applied Technologies in Life Science
In line with its mission to Enable Trust through constant innovation, SICPA offers state-of-the-art technologies based on unique expertise that combines material and digital security features in several fields, such as Life Science.
Health security solutions developed by SICPA ensure the authenticity of pharmaceutical and medical products such as diagnostics, drugs, vaccines, medical equipment and key documents (test results, certificates, prescriptions), with the aim of helping authorities monitor and anticipate societal health risks, reinforcing their autonomy and enhancing health crises response systems.
In addition to integrating physical and digital technologies to serialise and authenticate medical products, SICPA is also adopting concepts used in Life Sciences applications, levering MEMS, Inkjet and the most innovative Engineered DNA technologies.
Liquid handling, spotting and automated dispensing of liquids in the sub-microlitre range is an essential step in many production processes, as well as in R&D applications. The production of biochips, lateral flow (or lab-on-a-chip devices), the printing of microarrays, and the fabrication of biosensors all require a precise and reliable handling of very small amounts of fluids.
Biochips
SICPA, in its Italian Thermal Inkjet Centre of Excellence, provides the core competencies on microfluidics, together with the control of the interaction between ink and print head. This is a critical factor in thermal inkjet printing, as it allows new inks, such as bio-fluids, to better match both the functional behaviour and the printing performance of the device.
A concrete application of this equipment is in low density life science microarrays. Spotting of proteins, like antibodies or nucleic acids and single strands DNA chains (oligonucleotides), opens the way to IVD (In Vitro Diagnosis) miniaturised devices for laboratories analysis. The most significant advantages of this technique include:
Small costs, as a minimal quantity of reagents is needed
Reliability is linked to the possibility of performing multi-marker tests in parallel
Delocalisation enables to perform the tests in peripheral structures like local medical labs or pharmacies
Another interesting application exploits the methods of encapsulating engineered DNA into goods manufacturing.
Thanks to a substantial progress in biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, DNA can now be engineered, becoming much more than a biological tool. It bears information that can be printed or incorporated into a 2D or 3D object. Storing information/data in DNA is already in practice, and there is great hopes of scaling this technology for the future storage of digital data. Printing a synthetic DNA into an object provides the means for secure authentication and opens a new trend in marking and coding and in the domain of “DNA of things”.
Adopting concepts used in Life Science in MEMS, bio-chip inkjet dispensing and Engineered DNA, facilitates the closing of the loop between biology and digital printing, reinforcing SICPA’s mission of Enabling Trust in the field of Life Science applications.
