Drug anticounterfeiting: a roundup

Donna Cusano

Your Editors haven’t touched recently on technologies to authenticate prescription drugs. With counterfeits a huge issue in the developing world, we’ve written about Sproxil in Nigeria and India (confirming packaging code by SMS); Sproxil works with both the national government’s equivalent of FDA and pharmaceutical companies. Three others are highlighted in this MedCityNews article–more competition, more validation. There is now PharmaSecure which started in India in July (also text of code, but has added partners in appointment setting and house calls), CertiRx (embedded tag in drug using inactive ingredients, and Infra Trac (near-infrared signature into the drug formulation). The global anticounterfeit packaging market is expected to reach $82 billion by 2015. More about the impact of counterfeit drugs in Nigeria at their Business Day; for instance, 64% of anti-malarial drugs are fake.