The pharmaceutical industry is of great significance in ensuring the health of the general populace, but the increasing spread of counterfeits presents a huge challenge for all the involved parties such as pharmaceutical companies, distributors, retailers, and consumers alike. Counterfeit drugs have the ability to appear as much as the real drugs making their identification through visual inspection quite challenging. In light of this, pharmaceutical firms must embrace an anti-counterfeit solution for pharmaceuticals as part of contemporary brand protection and supply chain management strategy.
There exists a technology-based authentication solution which will allow pharmaceutical brands to authenticate their products, monitor their distribution, detect frauds and give consumers an easy way to ascertain whether the medicine is authentic or not.
What Is Pharmaceutical Counterfeiting?
Counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products refers to the unlicensed production, replication, re-labeling or distribution of drugs and healthcare items. The fake products could copy the packaging, labeling, batch number or even the appearance of genuine drugs.
The effects may go beyond just financial implications. The patients may receive a product that contains the wrong formulation, an insufficient quantity, poor quality or an unknown composition. On the other hand, the pharmaceutical company may suffer from the loss of revenue, reputation, customer trust and challenges in tracing the source of counterfeiting.
Product authentication and tracking thus become an integral part of pharmaceutical brand protection.
Why Do Pharmaceutical Companies Need an Anti-Counterfeit Solution?
The pharmaceutical supply chain process includes several steps such as manufacturing, packaging, storage, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and eventually consumers. Due to so many moving steps, the process of monitoring all steps may become difficult.
The anti-counterfeit solution for pharmaceuticals can be a very helpful one due to the following reasons:
- Detection of duplicate scans or suspicious scans of products
- Ability to provide customers with verification of their medicine
- Product tracking
- Supply chain leakage detection
- Improved pharmaceutical packaging security
- Monitoring of suspicious authentication activities
- Brand protection and consumer protection
- Creation of valuable data for counterfeiting investigations
Authentication through digital technology can make the whole process easier and more convenient.
Read Also: Why Product Originality Is the Key to Building Customer Trust
How Does an Anti-Counterfeit Solution for Pharmaceuticals Work?
In contemporary authentication solutions for pharmaceuticals, it is possible to integrate secure codes, smart labels, serialization, cloud-based software and real-time analysis.
A unique digital identity may be created for each particular product or packaging unit. The next step is to link this digital identity to product information kept in the authentication system.
Upon scanning the code by the customer, distributor or retailer, the system verifies the product information and sends the authentication response. In case of some system settings, the scanning process will also give information on suspicious and repeatable authentication requests.
VCQRU offers anti-counterfeiting technologies that leverage secure product authentication, smart QR packaging, traceability and data intelligence that allow brands to identify duplicates and suspicious activity. The company's platform also assists pharmaceutical organizations as part of industry-specific anti-counterfeiting ecosystem.
Key Technologies Used in Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting
1. Secure QR Code Authentication
With QR-based authentication, each product and package will get its digital identity that consumers can check through their smartphone when they need to verify their purchases.
This method is particularly relevant for pharmaceutical brands since it will enable them to create a link between the physical package of a drug and the digital system.
2. Product Serialization
The process of serialization allows providing unique identification of products and not just batches of them which will make it easier to trace the authentication history.
Also, unique serialization helps identify repeated verification attempts for brands.
3. Smart Labels
Smart labels allow combining visible and digital security elements to reduce the possibility of duplicate production. Depending on the needs, solutions will include QR codes, NFC/RFID, holograms, covert elements, UV elements, or security adhesives.
4. Track and Trace
Track and trace technology gives you more insight into the movement of the product through the supply chain. In this way, pharmaceutical companies can see where exactly their products are moving and what is the movement pattern.
Ideally, an anti-counterfeiting solution for pharmaceuticals should be connected with track-and trace technologies and not be just an authentication process.
5. Real-time Fraud Detection
Suspicious scanning behavior, unusual locations where scans occur, and unusual authentication behaviors can give valuable clues about counterfeiting.
Such patterns can be analyzed by today’s platforms to trigger alerts for further investigation by the brand protection team.
Read Also: How Product Authentication Protects Brands and Consumers from Counterfeit Products
Benefits of Pharmaceutical Product Authentication
Protects Patient Safety
The first thing that makes it very important is that it helps consumers differentiate real products from the potentially fake ones. It will be quite easy to conduct some kind of verification prior to purchase or using the product.
Strengthens Brand Trust
It is quite important that when a pharmaceutical company provides its consumers with an opportunity to authenticate the product, they show their commitment to protecting the product and consumers.
Improves Supply Chain Visibility
Such functionality can be used to understand how the product goes through various channels and detect any potential leakage or activity.
Helps Detect Counterfeit Activity
It produces data points that can then be used to analyze duplicates and any other suspicious activity or behavior.
Reduces Financial and Reputation Risks
However, counterfeits may be a source of negative influence on sales, brand image, and trust of consumers as well.
Why Consumer Verification Matters
Anti-counterfeiting efforts in the pharmaceutical industry should not completely rely on the manufacturing company, the distributors, and the retailers. The consumer can become a significant contributor to the verification process by providing an authentication procedure that is simple to perform.
For instance, the consumer scans the QR code on the packaging of the pharmaceutical product and gets the results of the authentication process. The authentication process could happen through mobile, website, application, WhatsApp, and USSD. VCQRU provides authentication that uses the following processes: mobile, website, app, WhatsApp, and USSD verification processes.
It becomes easier for the consumer to authenticate the products and at the same time provide market intelligence to the brand.
Choosing the Right Anti Counterfeit Solution for Pharmaceuticals
Pharmaceutical companies should evaluate several factors before implementing an anti-counterfeiting platform.
First, the solution should provide secure and unique product identification. Second, it should offer scalable authentication capable of supporting large product volumes. Third, it should provide useful reporting and analytics so that businesses can investigate suspicious activity.
Integration is another important consideration. A solution should be capable of connecting with existing business systems where required, helping organizations maintain a smooth flow of product and supply chain information. VCQRU states that its platform supports API integrations with enterprise ERP, CRM, and e-commerce systems.
The solution should also be flexible enough to support different packaging formats, distribution models, and consumer verification requirements.
VCQRU: Technology for Pharmaceutical Brand Protection
VCQRU provides an integrated solution to brand protection which involves anti-counterfeiting, product authentication, smart labeling, Track & Trace, and consumer engagement solutions.
The anti-counterfeiting solution by VCQRU is developed to assist in giving secure identities to the brands, verification of products, tracking the suspicious activities, and increasing visibility on the possibility of counterfeits. VCQRU includes pharmaceuticals in its list of industries that it serves and also specifies some of its solutions such as secure QR authentication, smart labeling, and track & trace for pharmaceutical purposes.
For the pharmaceutical industry, which needs product security, it is important to have an authentication technology platform.
Conclusion
Counterfeit drugs are not only a business issue, but they may lead to various threats towards patient health, pharmaceutical brands and the whole healthcare industry. Classical solutions of packaging and manual inspections might not guarantee enough visibility in contemporary supply chains.
Anti-counterfeiting solution for pharmaceuticals may include secure QR authentication, serialization, smart labels, Track & Trace, real time alarms, consumer verification, etc.
Thanks to the link between physical pharmaceutical packages and digital authentication technology, one will be able to increase product visibility, to identify any suspicious activities, to increase consumers' trust and to take more proactive steps in terms of counterfeits protection.
For pharmaceutical manufacturers modern product authentication will become not only a product protection measure, but also a patient protection and reputation management.
