Brussels – Altana Pharma Deutschland GmbH, Constance, a German subsidiary of Altana Pharma Corporation, a worldwide company with 8,200 employees, has installed a sample identification system within their medication research process using SATO's CT410 label printers.

Altana Pharma, which specialises in the areas of Therapeutics, Imaging and Self-medication (OTC), uses the SATO label printers in their “Metabolism and Pharmacogenetics” department for the seamless identification of test tubes that are used for bio-chemical analysis in medication research.

The CT410 from SATO, the world's leading manufacturer of label, barcode and RFID printers, is a compact yet robust label printer. It is equipped with a high-speed RISC processor for high data throughput and a choice of print heads for high resolution printing up to 12 dots/mm . With its special a ntimicrobial casing, the CT Series is especially suited to applications in the pharmaceutical environment, as well as in laboratories and hospitals.

The medication research process begins with a Unique Identifier Barcode for each sample, which is generated by an Oracle database. SATO's CT410 prints this code together with the detailed data (patient number and time) on the label, which Altana then applies to the test tube before the test tubes are sent by Altana to the clinic to take body fluid samples. The Unique Identifier serves to clearly and automatically identify a sample throughout its whole life span. When the filled test tubes return from the clinic, the labels are automatically scanned to determine if the samples are complete. At each step of the analytical process at Altana, the label is again automatically checked, so that a sample's whereabouts can be tracked at any given moment.

Werner Müller, IT Project Coordinator at Altana Pharma in Constance , explains why Altana has chosen two SATO CT410 printers for this application. “As other departments had already realised positive experiences with the robustness and reliability of SATO printers, it seemed only natural to also use SATO products for our sample identification system. Also, the price-quality ratio of SATO printers easily convinced us.”