News & Articles PHARMAPACKAGING

Overt anti-counterfeit packaging
Rohitt D Mistry
Pharmaceutical manufact ures 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 y our 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 anticounterfeit 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 inter-nationally that legitimate manu-facturers may be held liable for injuries suffered by consumers of counterfeit products. Especially if it call be proven that counter-feiting of the prod-uct was foreseeable and if there a recost 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 in-crease their market share by a few percent, but do not consider the effect anti-counterfeit mea-sures can have on their market share at a much lower cost.
Holographic Shrink bands PVC shrink bands are increasingly being used to protect contents of containers from tampering. In many markets, though this helpful, the ready availability of plain P V C e n a b l e s counterfeiters to match every move of the legitimate brand's protection strategy. However, shrink bands wi t h h o l o g r a p h i c stripes become a unique security-packaging product. Holographically enhanced shrink bands are processed in the usual way either on automatic shrink banding application machines and shrink tunnels, or manually on semi-auto packing lines. Holographic shrink bands are available in a variety of film thickness to suit automatic or manual application. It is available cut to size or in preformed to a specified shape. Preformed shapes expand the use of shrink bands into other areas of packaging, such as mechanical parts and engineering tools, i.e. grinding stone wheels, cutting blades, circular saws etc. Correctly specified shrink
bands will protect the engineered item from damage and authenticate the part as genuine, and also enable the sale of single units which in certain markets can considerably expand sales of the product / brand. The advantage of shrink bands with holographic stripes is thus greatly increased.
In such a scenario, the success of adoption and implementation of any anti-counterfeit measures will largely depend on the people in the supply chain, and specifically on two factors: cooperation of retailers and consumer education. Hence, consumers should join hands to address this issue leaving aside their petty commercial interests.
For details Contact :
Mr Rohitt D Mistry
Holographic Security Marking Systems P. Limited.
109 Blue Rose Ind. Est., W.E. Highway,
Borivali (E), Mumbai 400 066
Tel: +91-22-5690 4592 / 2854 0872, Fax: 5690 4591
Email: holotechs@vsnl.net
Web: www.holotechonline.com
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 :
  • Aluminium blister lid - ding foil
  • Aluminium tablet strip foil
  • PVC for tablet blister form ation
  • Holographic stripe for online application to PVC
  • Tamper evident labels & seals
  • Induction capseals which seal to HDF or PET.
  • Wet labels & Cartons
  • Hologr aphi c Sl e eve s Each of these products is Specially made for particular application and is designed to integrate into the production process.
Hologram on Aluminium Foil
Hologram on tablet strip
Hologram on PVC
Self adhesive holographic stripe
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
Tablet strip foil is similar to the blister lidding foil except that it is soft tempered and available in 25-40microns in thickness. To ensure that the hologram can be seen most clearly it should be placed over the tablet pockets in the machine direction.
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.
Holographic stripe for online application to PVC This self-adhesive holographic tape is another anticounterfeit solution for pharmaceutical products. It is applied online using a simple attachment to the existing blister packaging line. The major advant age i s common inventory for a range of products and single solution for blister packs. Holographic stripe is tamper evident and not re-usable
Tamper Evident Seal
Induction CapSeal.
Wet lable
Tamper evident hologram labels and seals are used for direct application to a product, or for sealing packages.
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
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 hologr am runson existing machinery and requires sophisticat edhot stamping equipment and skill for its production. They can be used on syrup bottles, vials or even on ampoules.
 
benefits
  • Cannot be copied or duplicated.
  • Cannot be tampered or re-used.
  • Can be easily applied to the product or documents.
  • Easily verifiable by the user / manufacturer.
  • Total brand protection.
  • Tamper-evident pilfer proof solutions.
  • Foolproof document authentication.
  • Our most modern mastering facility that provides no scope whatsoever for any kind of duplication.