For most of us, the blister packs our medicines come in are just temporary barriers to be scratched open with our fingernails or popped open like Chiclets. We usually don’t even pay attention to the tiny, vaguely printed expiration dates tattooed on the silver skin of our aspirin or cough medicine’s packaging; we take for granted that it’s in date.
Yet around the world, billions of people can’t take the expiration dates of their medication for granted. Doing so can, and often is, fatal. A new concept could put an end to that by encapsulating our medicines in strips that change color as they expire, transforming the packaging of dangerously out-of-date medication into a chromatic warning. But will big pharma bring it to market?