Counterfeiting and Converting Industry Connections

Published: February 10, 2003, By Nsenga Byrd Thompson, Staff Editor

Reconnaissance International’s Protecting Medicines & Pharmaceuticals: A Manual of AntiCounterfeiting Solutions is a 229-page book dedicated to the problem of counterfeiting and the solutions to combat it.

The manual is designed to help the pharmaceutical industry find ways to fight the problem of counterfeit and other sub-standard pharmaceuticals. The manual features discussions from several industry leaders including Ian Lancaster and Lew Kontnik of Reconnaissance International; the World Health Organization; Sharon Carr Associates; and M. Thomas Henderson of the Nosco Printing Group.

The manual is said to provide guidance on establishing the corporate strategy and details of the components that make it effective. The manual’s readership includes security personnel, packaging designers and technologists, buyers, and intellectual property teams. The manual’s primary objective is to give these groups the ability to understand what they can do to fight counterfeiting, the systems and solutions available to help them do it, and how they can implement and evaluate those solutions.

The book is divided into six sections:

• counterfeiting and its impact;

• management strategies for protection and enforcement;

• authentication technologies and product security;

• valuation and return on investment;

• partnership and industry cooperation; and

• appendices.

The most applicable information to the converting industry appears in "Section 3: Authentication Technologies and Product Security." Noteworthy chapters include:

• Chapter 14: "Packaging, Print and Design";

• Chapter 15: "The Packaging and Printing Converter and Product Security";

• Chapter 16: "Labels and Seals";

• Chapter 17: "Tamper Evidence: A Key Packaged Defense Against Counterfeit Drugs";

• Chapter 18: "Track & Trace Solutions."

The book also features several useful case studies including "Tylenol," by Magali LeParc, consultant; "Holograms," by Jim Reiman, Westvaco Brand Security; "Why Labels?," by Thomas Volcker, Shreiner ProSecure; and "Transparent OVDs for Pharmaceutical Packaging Security," by Peyton Old, ITW Holopak.

Edited by Magali LeParc, the organized, easy-to-use manual proves to be a great resource for anyone who wants to get a clear-cut understanding to what counterfeiting is, its connections to the converting industry, and the solutions converters can utilize to prevent it.

Reconnaissance International, publisher and consultant with offices in the US and U.K., was founded in 1987 by Lew Kotnik and is a global intelligence source on authentication for the brand protection, security print, and personal-identification markets. Reconnaissance publishes Authentication News (covering issues, strategies, and technologies of anticounterfeiting and antidiversion) and has organized a dozen successful anticounterfeiting conferences around the world.