Combatting counterfeit goods in the pharmaceutical sector

 The Word Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that globally between 1% to 10% of medicines sold around the world are counterfeit and in some countries that figure could be as high as 50%.

To address the issue of counterfeit products regulatory authorities around the world have put in place a number of different measures such as unique identifier (UID) codes and anti-tampering devices.

“These are used by suppliers to verify and authenticate the products prior to distribution, then can be used by retail and consumers to ensure integrity up to the point of consumption or application,” says Gillian Ewers, vice president product management at PragmatIC Semiconductor.