Fighting fakes with technology

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the way consumers behave when it comes to shopping. There has been a significant increase of ~70 per cent in online shopping after Mar 2020. The world is moving towards contactless purchase and delivery and the consumer wants to know more about the provenance and authenticity of the products before they buy it. Yet, as per WHO, 30-50 per cent of drugs bought online are fake.

Pharmaceuticals have consistently ranked among the top 10 counterfeited goods, with product risk varying from market to market. With the complex modern pharma supply chain, eliminating substandard and spurious drugs and creating an environment where patients receive quality and affordable medicines requires equal responsibility from all the stakeholders.

The global counterfeit drugs industry is estimated to be worth up to $200 billion and growing. WHO says that exact figures may never be fully known due to the complexity of the distribution networks and the illegal nature of the trade and it is estimated that approximately 100,000 people across the continent die every year from taking counterfeit or sub-standard medication. Pharma products are especially attractive to counterfeiters due to high-profit margins and ease of avoiding detection and prosecution. Even for those who are caught, the penalties tend to be mild as compared to other drug offences.

With the ongoing increase of counterfeit pharma products putting countless people at risk of further illness or even death, it would be prudent to look into an effective anti-counterfeiting strategy which offers protection of your brand and ensures that these illicit goods are successfully removed from the market. The authentication sector has evolved to new paradigms in the last few years with the advancement of new digital technologies. The new digital technologies in combination with physical security technologies are making an ideal form.

The global pharma industry is moving towards a serialised world. In over 40 countries, regulatory mandates to secure the supply chain are already in place or in development. Regulatory mandates typically require serialisation and verification or product tracking at a saleable unit level. There are two challenges – detecting falsified medicines as well as stopping diversion. While we need to ensure that the product cannot be replicated, we also need to ensure the product has not been removed from the supply chain, tampered with and then re-entered in the system at a different country and/or location.

In 2011, our government determined that it needed to protect the reputation of its exports and of the pharma industry and they thus implem