One of the most prolific industries for counterfeits, the global trade in pharmaceutical counterfeit drugs is currently valued at ~ $300bn (Journal of Global Health, 2022). Meanwhile, the WHO suggests that counterfeit pharmaceuticals are responsible for an annual death toll of over 1m people annually (World Health Organization, 2019).
Counterfeit pharmaceutical products may be disguised using established and widely recognised brand names, logos and packaging, or counterfeit packaging that attempts to replicate existing labelling in order to trick customers into purchasing them. However, it is not just the packaging that is manufactured illegally. Counterfeiters may produce drugs that contain no active ingredients, incorrect amounts, or incorrect ingredients, posing serious threats to public safety.
With counterfeit medicine cited as one of the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprises (Journal of Global Medicine, 2022), it is apparent that pharmaceutical companies must act now to achieve individual product level authentication and safeguard public health.
Despite advancements in anti-counterfeiting technologies, vulnerabilities still exist which allow the identities of goods to be faked. Research from PwC suggests the problem lies in the macroscopic nature of these identities; RFIDs, holograms, fingerprints and irises can all be copied or cloned.
At Quantum Base, we have created the world’s first unbreakable anti-counterfeit tag, our Q-ID® solution, which cannot be copied, cloned or faked. These are simply authenticated by a standard smartphone in real-time, allowing billions of global end consumers to be the custodian of medicine authenticity, armed with nothing more than a smartphone.
We can provide an immediate Q-ID® solution at box and foil level, and we are currently developing a solution which can be placed at individual pill level, after clinical trials.
With COVID-19 and the growing worldwide demand for treatments, this has created a lucrative market for criminals, and counterfeiting black marketeers. Anti-counterfeit solutions can help to stop this market.
With Q-ID® pharmaceutical firms can:
Simple to make and yet impossible to copy, Q-ID®s from Quantum Base provide the ultimate in product authentication for pharmaceuticals, all at an ultra low cost.