Product verification and Anti-counterfeiting

Criminal statistics shows that of any given country, you would soon gather that counterfeits, forgery and replica products are increasing among international criminal offenses. Virtually all sectors have been affected, especially the medicine industry. It is an alarming development that has led governments and international organizations to draw up laws and anti-counterfeit mechanism against this growing felony. Presently pharmaceutical industry is one of the most affected sectors. It is estimated that around 50% of medicines ordered online are fake. It must not be ignored that the risk duplicate products pose to users can be very high.

The risk impact of duplicate medicines is very high. It ranges from ineffectiveness and incorrect dosage to ingredients that pose a risk to health – lives of People and well-being are in danger . As for producers, they suffer financial damage and loss of image and consumer confidence due to imitated pharmaceutical products. Over time the fight against pharmaceutical counterfeiters has seen the creation of a number of organizations which seek and develop solutions to the anti-counterfeit situation.

One of the most effective is the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT), which was founded by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2006. A wide range of groups and administrative bodies work together in this organization, such as NGOs (non-governmental organizations), law enforcement agencies, manufacturer associations in the pharmaceutical industry and a whole range of international organizations. Its aim is to draw up legal framework conditions, initiate technologies for the traceability of products and their protection against counterfeits, while supporting international standards for product marking.

From the individual packaging to the shipping pallets and shipping containers used to transport the goods. From the manufacturer via national and international trade chains to pharmacists. Counterfeiting and fraud can only be eliminated if a product can be seamlessly traced right back to its manufacture from every point in the logistics chain. Against this background, pharmaceutical companies find themselves in an extremely difficult situation. On the one hand, they must comply with the relevant legal framework conditions and their own compliance standards.

Safety first

Safety requires rules and expertise,

All leading bodies and organizations agree that the alarming increase in counterfeit products means that the entire supply chain must be as seamlessly secure as possible. Serialization in the form of the clear inspection and tracing of medicines across all stages of manufacturing and packaging is therefore a decisive step in ensuring quality, safety and trust. Transparent data and documentation management is a fundamental requirement here. Due to the international value-added chains within the pharmaceutical industry, an internationally uniform procedure would be desirable. However in reality the situation is quite different. There are many ways of implementing traceability.The most common encoding methods are:

• Barcodes
• 2D-codes
• RFID-tags

Global Anti-tampering, Authentication & Anti-counterfeiting Market

The global anti-tampering, authentication & anti-counterfeiting  market consists of authentication and track & track technology types. Authentication forms the most dominant segment of this market in terms of market share as well as product innovations. Track & trace technologies are further classified as bar codes and RFID of which barcodes form the major segment whereas RFID is the emerging market.

        Authentication is basically segmented further into taggants, holograms, inks & dyes, and other authentication technologies such as watermarks and digital features. These technologies have been tried and tested in various domains such as food, beverage, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, and various other segments such as retail, consumer durables & electronics, cosmetics, banks, government & defense agencies.

Track & trace technologies are majorly dominated by the barcodes segment. Barcodes are used in numerous applications globally and account for over 60.0% of the track & trace technologies market in 2013. RFID is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 20.0%, to reach $35.2 billion by 2019.

Rising instances of counterfeit products that are easily available in local markets and increasing awareness of consumers about counterfeits are the major factors fueling the global anti-tampering, authentication & anti-counterfeiting market. Increasing government regulations and stress laid on eradicating counterfeit products in many developed and developing countries is another reason for the growth of anti-counterfeit technologies in various regions.