No chance of product piracy

Over ten percent of medicines worldwide are counterfeit, according to a study by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As a specialist in pharmaceutical packaging, the STI Group embraced the challenge to design a pharmaceutical packaging that patients, pharmacists and hospitals can rely on and that ensures that the product in their hands is an original product.

The pharmaceutical packaging protects people against counterfeit medicines and the pharmaceutical industry against high financial losses.

'There are several options to secure a folding box against counterfeiting,' according to Zoltan Toth, in charge of packaging design at the Hungarian folding carton plant of the STI Group. The combination of as many visible and invisible security features as possible offers the best safeguard. We use a combination of classic anti-counterfeiting measures and new solutions such as the Trustcode®. This optical element can be scanned with mobile devices and the authenticity tracked by means of an app. In addition to this, the supply chain can be monitored by track and trace. Microtext, ICI or a coating that is only visible under UV light are just few of the features that can be found on the packaging, some of which are only used if the means necessary to decode them are available.  

Tamper-evident Closure and Serialisation  

A tamper-evident closure protects the product against tampering and swapping of medicines. For packaging filled by machines at the pharmaceutical manufacturer’s site, various designs are possible to implement this requirement. Despite the tamper evidence, it is still possible to reseal the box after it has been opened for the first time. In manual filling, a security label, which is damaged when the box is first opened, indicates that the packaging was already opened.

The pharmaceutical packaging also has an individual serial number that is printed either at the packaging manufacturer’s site or during the packaging process at the pharmaceutical manufacturer’s site. The printing of an individual GS1 data matrix code allows the packaging to be tracked over the entire supply chain. The tamper evidence can also be checked with a smartphone using a special app.