The winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice, or economic inequality.
TruTag Technologies’ “edible barcode” solution, which provides on-dose authentication of medication, has been selected as a finalist in the Healthcare category of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing idea awards. The barcodes, called “TruTags®”, are invisible, highly-secure edible identifiers contained in tablet coatings or ink on capsules that can be read with a mobile app. Made of high-purity silica, a GRAS material requiring little to no regulatory approval, TruTags are affordable and do not require process changes by pharmaceutical manufacturers, making adoption seamless. No other company has developed an on-dose technology capable of enabling the pharma and healthcare industry to address the profound challenges of medication authenticity, safety and adherence.
Now in its fifth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 33 winners, more than 400 finalists, and more than 800 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, AI & Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more. Plus, several new categories were added, including Pandemic Response, Urban Design, and Architecture. The 2021 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Brazil to Denmark to Vietnam.
Showcasing some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies tackling exigent global challenges, Fast Company’s Summer 2021 issue (on newsstands May 10) highlights, among others, a lifesaving bassinet; the world’s largest carbon sink, thanks to carbon-eating concrete; 3D-printed schools; an at-home COVID-19 testing kit; a mobile voting app; and the world’s cleanest milk.
“Especially in the midst of the pandemic, it’s more important than ever before to stop the circulation of counterfeit drugs and provide pharma and patients alike with complete confidence in their medications,” says Michael Bartholomeusz, Chief Executive Officer of TruTag Technologies. “With TruTags, we have created a solution that seamlessly fits into the pharmaceutical supply chain, providing on-dose authentication and complete peace of mind. This award from Fast Company is an incredible honor and validation of our belief that drug authenticity is crucial to global health, down to the individual capsule.”
“There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times. So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability, and passion to solve these problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have discovered some of the most groundbreaking projects that have launched since the start of 2020.”