Drink and drug advances target anti-counterfeit potential

By Neil Merrett

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Counterfeit Authentication

Preventing the availability of counterfeit goods on the global consumer market has led one supplier of pharmaceutical protection systems team up with beverage industry counterparts for ongoing developments.

Steve Wood, chief executive of Pharmorx told BevergeDaily.com that despite the differences between the drinks and pharma industries, both sets of manufacturers faced very similar problems, often requiring virtually the same solutions.

The manufacturer claimed therefore that in entering into a partnership with the Belfast-based MSO group, their respective experiences with drugs and beverages could be combined to offer new insights for pack verification and traceability on a global basis.

Team up

Wood said that the team up comes at a time when staying ahead of the counterfeiters has become an increasingly complex challenge, with advancements in digital press technology allowing for manufacturing lines of identical looking goods to be set up in days.

Although its partnership with MSO was announced just last week at the Interphex trade show taken place in New York, Wood said that the companies had been working over the last year on devising new technology to meet industry concerns over copycats.

Aside from collaborating on product distribution in EU and US markets, the manufacturer said that MSO specialised in labelling and ‘invisible’ inks that are only readable by proprietary leaders in order to verify a product’s authenticity.

Although Wood accepted that counterfeiters had been found to adapt to new techniques, it was continually readdressing its security offerings.

Specific patterns used by manufacturers on their security labelling to verify batches could also be changed periodically on a monthly or even weekly basis.

To provide increased layers of counterfeit security for beverage products, Pharmorx said that its own traceability technology, devised initially for pharmaceutical goods, had been adopted to protect products through the supply chain.

Asia ambitions

Wood said that the company was able to work with manufacturers on pilot track and trace schemes that can be backed by inspection teams. These inspectors can then use the company’s own barcode technology to track specific product lines back through the supply line to establish any potential compromises in security.

Besides making the products available both in the US and Europe, Pharmorx said that it was already looking at projects in South East Europe with the beverage, tobacco and infant nutrition industries

Despite global manufacturing concerns related to the economic downturn, Wood claimed that fears over tightening costs in the industry need not exclude drinks groups from ensuring brand security.

Pharmorx claims to offer a menu of services that it says can be tailored to individual operations of manufacturers in a bid to better control cost.

Where possible, Pharmorx also said that it made its technology compatible with existing packaging systems being used by companies. The growing use of 2D barcode technology for product inventory meant that systems such as traceability scanning can be easily rolled out across operations, claimed the company.

Despite growing financial concern during the economic downturn, the group believed that beverage makers were not likely to scrimp on protecting brand identity from counterfeiters.

“Typically a company will want several layers of protection,” ​stated Wood. “These may include combining invisible inks with track and trace systems.”

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