As the world is facing an increasing threat from counterfeit, misbranded, and diverted prescription drugs, various organizations and major pharmaceutical manufacturers are focusing on developing methods to reliably track and trace prescription drugs.
ePedigree Solutions to the Rescue
In an effort to counter this issue, countries and organizations are pursuing the need for serialization. The serialization process provides the complete scenario of a given product’s chain of custody from the manufacturer to the point of dispensing.
Pharmaceutical organizations and manufacturers are continuously investing in ways to uniquely serialize every unit, so that the organizations have enhanced visibility of the supply chain process.
In the past few decades, organizations have faced difficulties in tracking and tracing a pharmaceutical drug in the supply chain system. Hence, organizations prefer ePedigree solutions and serialized product tracking software, which records data such as serial numbers and child to parent relationships, the items to bundle, and the selected bundles.
These are then sealed into cases throughout the labeling and packaging process. This information is stored in ePedigree and other business applications used in companies such as SAP, Oracle, and IBM. The serialized product tracking solution uses a variety of technologies such as RFID and 2D barcodes that can encode unique EPC and SGTIN numbers. It also helps protect organizations from fraud and the forgery of prescription drugs.
Four Types of ePedigree Software
Many anti-counterfeit technologies are available for manufacturers and brand owners, ranging from simple and effective to complex and sophisticated. The Global ePedigree Software market and the related Anti-counterfeiting market can be broadly segmented as follows:
Visible Features
Visible features or overt features help end-users to verify the authenticity of the pack. These features are clearly visible, and it is hard to make any changes. A few visible features are holograms, OVD, color shifting security inks, security graphics, sequential numbering, and marking on the product.
Hidden Markers
Hidden features or covert features are used to enable brand owners to identify a fake product. General users will not be aware of their presence nor have the means to verify them. A few hidden features are invisible printing, embedded images, digital watermarks, hidden marks, anti-scan designs, laser coding, and substrates.
Forensic Techniques
Many high-end technology solutions are conducted in the laboratory and require testing to prove authenticity scientifically. These are a subset of hidden technologies, but the main difference is the scientific methodology required for authentication. A few such techniques are chemical taggants, biological taggants, DNA taggants, isotope ratios, and micro-taggants.
Track and Trace
Track and trace technology serves a few important functions such as tracking items through the supply chain, providing traceability of the history of any item, and enabling authentication of the data at any time. Serialization, barcodes, RFID tagging, and topography or unique surface markings are a few of the techniques used in this technology.
