Tablet Authentication: Current state and optimized solutions

Global trade means that extra effort is required to protect one’s products from the manufacturing line through distribution to the point of sale. In particular, it is not enough to track and trace packaged products throughthe supply chain using printed unique product identifiers and serialization systems, because new serialization requirements in many countries also require proof that the contents of the packages are actually genuine (authentic) and can be authenticated easily. This leaves producers with no choice but to invest in authentication technologies if they intend to continue selling their products in those territories.

 

Unfortunately in the pharmaceutical market at present, individual products are still mostly secured by logistics, i.e., track and trace systems, which are only useful to track groups of products but not to authenticate the individual products. By legalizing re-packaging of goods, the current track and trace systems have become ineffective for the purpose of protection against counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Criminal enterprises increasingly exploit this fundamental weakness to introduce fake pharmaceuticals into the legitimate supply chain.

 

In this white paper we present nano4u’s unique authentication solutions to overcome this gap – these allow true-authentication of pharmaceutical products themselves within a secondary package by creating a link between the physical properties of the medication itself with track and trace information codes printed on the package, i.e., the unique product identifier. Using established production technologies, our authentication solutions are highly cost-effective for mass production . nano4u – solutions do not add anymarking agents to products.

 

nano4u’s authentication solutions are fully compatible with all global serialization standards. It

complements them with true authentication capability on the level of the individual product

(pharmaceutical dosage form). It therefore also simplifies inter-operability and reliability of and between various different national or regional serialization systems.