Measures to cope with counterfeiting of drugs & medicines

Nowadays people are so money minded that they won’t mind risking other people’s lives while seeking their own benefit. Counterfeiting in pharmaceutical industry is that risk which grabbed attention of the government. It not only causes the scarcity of resources but also increases the expenses of concerned authorities to cope with the situation, just like the government. Poor regulation of rules, lack of awareness towards the counterfeiting and a higher number of intermediaries are few of those factors which are associated with it. There is a need to implement anti counterfeiting methods to deal with the problem of counterfeiting because it’s going to increase in near times as the prices of every second thing is skyrocketing.

This false representation of a medical product’s identity compels the consumer to compromise with their brand loyalty due to the lack of trust because this counterfeiting seems almost real. The Pharma companies should use one or all of the following measures, which are effective anti counterfeiting methods, to ensure the safety of customers and avoid this unwanted consequences:

Using Hologram: there are numerous companies who are using the holograms on their products to differentiate them from others and preserve their originality which certainly avoids the risk of counterfeiting.

Pedigree: it is a document or an E-file which is a part of tracking and tracing technology to tackle with anti counterfeiting. In this strategy, pedigree records all the information of distribution of drugs & medicines which are being dispatched from the manufacturer to the end party who verify the whole consignment thoroughly using that pedigree.

Data Carriers: it is a graphical system which is used to transmit the information related with the product in digital but human readable format which can either be 2D/ linear barcodes or RFID tags.

GTIN: global trade item number is a unique identification number which is not only digital but also ensures the guidelines being followed as per GS1 allocation rules for the trade products and services.

Apart from the aforementioned anti counterfeiting methods, there are others which are being followed in many countries, like Epothecary is that mobile based authentication system which recently has been proposed in India. Taking various measures to cope with counterfeiting of drugs and medicines is not enough to eradicate it from the world, educating the masses regarding this problem will contribute in saving the pharmaceutical industry.