Pharmaceutical manufactures take great pains in making medicinal products. They spend great sums to market their product. The consumer accepts it and it is a great success. Soon you get unwanted publicity.

Though all of the assets are protected, the "golden goose", that is the brand, is unprotected. You have risk cover for your factories, your offices, but you have pushed out your most important and valuable asset into the world without any protection.

Companies should do all that they can to ensure the safety of their products and brands from intrusion of any kind, in the first place. Data from around the world indicates, that brands protected by overt anti-counterfeit measures have benefited from increased sales through a great reduction in counterfeits, and when counterfeits are attempted they can be easily identified and the culprits prosecuted, leading to increased consumer confidence in the brand.

It is also increasingly important for a company to protect their brands as it is being argued internationally that legitimate manufacturers may be held liable for injuries suffered by consumers of counterfeit products. Especially if it can be proven that counterfeiting of the product was foreseeable and if there are cost effective ways of protecting and preventing the product from being counterfeited.

It is worthy to recall the class action suite against Serano Biotech USA for their "Sero Stem" brand in this context. It is certainly amazing that companies are ready to spend crores of rupees on marketing to increase their market share by a few per cent, but do not consider the effect anti-counterfeit measures can have on their market share, at a much lower cost.

Hologram

Today the most cost-effective method to combat counterfeiting and build consumer confidence is the incorporation of hologram image on the product or on the packaging. Holograms as anti-counterfeit devices are so successful that now over 40 currencies around the world have holograms as part of the anti-counterfeit protection system - including the Swiss Frank, Euro, British Sterling, Japanese Yen, etc.

For best effectiveness, any security device must be incorporated into the product packaging. This usually requires careful planning and cooperation of all departments with the vendor. An integrated security device is very effective in combating spurious and counterfeit manufacturers, as it requires a high degree of skill and know-how to produce the right product. A range of authentication products specifically designed for the pharmaceutical sector to combat counterfeiters are available today. They include:
1) Aluminium blister lidding foil
2) Aluminium tablet strip foil
3) PVC for tablet blister formation
4) Holographic stripe for online application to PVC
5) Tamper evident labels & seals
6) Induction capseals - which seal to HDP or PET.
7) Wet labels & Cartons
8) Holographic Sleeves

Each of these products is specially made for a particular application and is designed to integrate into the production process.

1) Blister lidding foil is aluminium foil with a hologram stripe (in the machine direction) beside the printed matter on the foil surface. This enables easy viewing of the printed matter and as hologram stripe has to be carefully positioned on the foil, it adds that extra sophistication to the package.

2) Tablet strip foil is similar to the blister lidding foil except that it is soft tempered and available in 25- 40 microns in thickness. To ensure that the hologram can be seen most clearly it should be placed over the tablet pockets in the machine direction.

3) UPVC & PVDC coated for blister formation is supplied with a hologram stripe (in the machine direction) so that there is a hologram on every blister strip. The advantage of this is that a single stock line of hologramed PVC can be used for a variety of products; helping to keep inventories low.

4) Holographic stripe for online application to PVC.
This self-adhesive holographic tape is another anti-counterfeit solution for pharmaceutical products. It is applied online using a simple attachment to the existing blister packaging line. The major advantage is common inventory for a range of products and single solution for blister packs and tablet strip packs. Holographic stripe is tamper evident and not re-usable.

5) Tamper evident hologram labels and seals are used for direct application to a product, or for sealing packages.

6) Induction CapSeal. Holographic aluminium induction capseals offer a foolproof anti counterfeit device; an intact seal which is not damaged authenticates that the contents have not been tampered with, and the hologram gives it the confidence of genuineness.

7) Wet labels and Cartons. This product is exactly the same as the existing wet label, except that it has a hologram on the label. The hologram can be of any shape, size, and position on the label. This is one of the most efficient ways of using the hologram to authenticate products. The wet label with hologram runs on existing machinery and requi-res sophisticated hot stam-ping equipment and skill for its production. They can be used on syrup bottles, vials or even on ampoules.

Where cartons are used they can be supplied with hologram stamped on to the surface of the board as a stripe or in any shape and size as required.

8) Holographic Sleeves.

PVC shrink bands with hologram stripe is the new way to authenticate and protect contents of containers from tampering. The shrink band with hologram stripe can be processed in the usual way either automatically or manually.

Security of a brand requires a multi pronged strategy; including, areas such as material sourcing, manufacturing, packaging with covert & overt features, logistics, distribution channel, etc. What has been highlighted here, are overt anti-counterfeit security devices incorporating holograms that have a worldwide reputation for being the most successful device to combat counterfeiters. They are highly visible, can be easily verified by a non technical person, impossible to very difficult to copy, alter, duplicate and most of all cost effective with excellent returns on investment.

Pharma companies can now benefit further from the incentives given by NPPA (National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority) for better packaging to prevent spurious and counterfeit drugs. This means that the commonly used and price controlled drugs where margins are tight, can also be protected from being counterfeited.

Companies use holographic anti-counterfeit devices because they can combat counterfeiting, comply with international standard of good practice to safeguard the consumers while simultaneously protecting their brand's reputation, increase sales and profits.

-- The author is Chairman, Holographic Security Marking Systems P. Limited