The Escalating Counterfeit Pharma Problem
Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals is a huge menace around the world and it seems to be growing. Any drugs that have been fraudulently manufactured or wrongly labeled with regard to their identity, source or both with the intention of giving it the appearance of a genuine product can be viewed as counterfeit.
Furthermore, counterfeit medicines might include drugs that do not possess any active pharmaceutical ingredient, or the wrong amount of it, or the wrong quality of it, and even contaminants. These could also comprise of expired repackaged products or even formulated inaccurately and produced in sub-par conditions.
Counterfeiting is a problem in both branded as well as generic drugs. Sadly, the number of counterfeit medicines continue to proliferate in the world and some have even been sold by reputed pharmacies.
Many of these fake medications masquerading as the real product are even used for treating life-threatening conditions.
According to WHO estimates, as much as 10% of the global pharmaceutical trade involves counterfeit drugs. This amounts to a whopping $21 billion in turnover. Another WHO finding from one of their studies reveals that 48.7% of all recorded incidents of drug counterfeiting was reported in countries like China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
African developing countries contributed a further 18.7%, while the industrialized parts of Europe have a counterfeit drug manufacturing percentage of 13.6%.
As much as 1% of all the counterfeit drugs produced are sold in the United States. In Europe alone the losses from fake pharma touch a figure as high as 27 billion euros.
The fact that quite a few counterfeit medicines in that country are ordered online suggests that the infiltration of legitimate supply chains is quite widespread.
The Need of Effective Counterfeit Protection for Covid-19 Vaccines
The world can now breathe a sigh of relief on account of the fact that the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines has begun and everyone can see light at the end of the tunnel.
Unfortunately, there are those who see in the gargantuan demand for the vaccines, a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a fortune, by infiltrating the supply chain with fake Covid vaccines.
The thing about fake Covid-19 vaccines is that no counterfeiter possesses the wherewithal to produce one, but they can put on an act of doing so by reproducing the vaccine packaging and filling the injectable vials with inactive or more worryingly harmful contents.
This is a very grave global problem as there are many parts in the world with poor or non-existent anti-counterfeiting and tracking and tracing capabilities.
It is therefore very important for pharma companies to implement effective and comprehensive anti-counterfeiting measures in place. These include both physical authenticity as well as traceability technologies which can help stamp out tampering and counterfeiting by strengthening supply chain integrity.
Strategies to Combat Fake Pharma
Maintaining product integrity can prove to be quite challenging for the pharmaceutical industry. Part of this is on account of the diverse European and US regulations as well as those found in other nations of the world. The differences are also on account of varying business and supply chain models. That being stated the importance and integrity of supply chains is paramount when it comes to the all important fight against fake products as well as the protection of the industry and the consumers.
As part of this process the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (EU FMD) Safety Features Delegated Regulation has since last 2019 made the serialization of licensed drugs in Europe mandatory from a legal point of view. As regards the US, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act or DSCSA declared a compliance cutt-off that kicked in in 2018. These changes are expected to have far reaching consequences for the global pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. The FMD process, for instance requires pharmaceutical companies to send the serialization data to Europe using a bar code mechanism, as also place a tamper proof seal on every package.
The essence of a workable strategy to secure a supply chain with cutting edge verification methods that can identify counterfeit drugs with ease.
Vaccine Vial Monitor (VVM) for Covid-19 Vaccine
The world has finally seen the much awaited roll out of several Covid-19 vaccines and for billions around the world, it hasn’t come a day too soon.
That being stated, there are immense logistical and safety requirements with regard to these all important vaccines that need to be highlighted. For instance, these required specialized refrigeration equipment for their safe transportation through the supply chain. There remains the risk of the vaccines getting damaged while being transported on account of even a brief exposure to higher temperatures.
It is imperative, therefore, for health workers to be certain that the vaccines are safe to be used, before administering them. This is made possible by attaching what is known as a vaccine vial monitor (VMM) to the vaccine vials.
These comprise a temperature-sensitive smart label containing a colorless chemical which, being sensitive to time and heat, becomes darker on account of cumulative heat exposure, indicating that the vaccine is not fit to use. This will enable vaccinators to determine just by looking at the vials, whether the vaccine contained in them is good to use.
How NanoMatriX Can Help (Security Labels & Thermochromic Labels for Cold Chain)
The challenges facing the global pharmaceutical industry in general and the vaccine manufacturers and healthcare workers engaged in administering the Covid-19 are formidable.
NanoMatriX Technologies Ltd. has just the right kind of solutions for overcoming these challenges. It offers smart and connected anti-counterfeit security labels as well as thermochromic labels needed by these vaccines.
These multi-level security anti-counterfeit labels are equipped with overt, covert and forensic features. It has tamper evident features as well as security inks to ensure that healthcare workers, vaccinators and recipients of the Covid-19 vaccine shots are guaranteed of the genuineness of the vaccine in question.
NanoMatriX’s thermochromic inks change color with changes in temperature allowing these to be put to use in the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccines worldwide.
These inks have been extensively used in securing the integrity of the various pharmaceutical supply chains. Among the thermochromic inks are the irreversible ones that turn from invisible to a color and reversible inks that can turn from color to invisible. Tri-thermochromic ink turns from color to color to invisible.
These solutions can be extremely useful in securing pharmaceutical products, including Covid-19 vaccines throughout the supply chain.
NanoMatriX can also deploy cutting-edge technologies like the use of chemical markers as well as sophisticated track and trace software, enabling tracking through all distribution points and enabling pharma companies to both monitor and improve the security of global supply chains.