Anti-Counterfeiting for Pharmaceutical Brands
The average pharmaceutical brand takes 4 months to detect a counterfeit product in circulation. By then it has reached thousands of patients and your pharmacovigilance team is already managing fallout.
Counterfeit Medicines Are Not a Fringe Risk
Most QA and brand protection teams discover a counterfeiting problem after a patient complaint, a regulator inquiry, or a social media post. By the time your team confirms the source, the fake has been in the market for months.
Six Problems Your QA Team Faces in the Field
A counterfeit looks like your product in every way the eye can check. Same blister, same foil, same carton. The only difference is what is inside. Without authentication at pack level, your QA team cannot catch it in the field.
Someone who used to work at your contract manufacturer knows your batch numbers, your specs, and your distributor network. They are producing your formulation and selling it under your label. Without unique serialised IDs, you cannot distinguish theirs from yours.
Your brand protection team finds a fake listing, files a takedown, and the seller opens a new store with a different name the next day. Without automated monitoring, you are always one step behind. Manual takedowns do not scale.
Used blister packs are refilled with substandard product and resealed. The packaging is genuine and passes every visual check. A rescan alert on previously dispensed packs is the only reliable way to catch this.
A pharmacist calls your medical rep about a product that looked different. By the time the complaint reaches your brand protection team, the fake has been in that market for weeks. You need alerts before the phone calls start.
Your legal team wants to take action against a known counterfeiter. The evidence is a blurry photo and a secondhand complaint. Timestamped scan data, GPS locations, and device fingerprints from Certify and Truviss produce the kind of evidence that holds up in court and with regulators.
Four Mandates Your Regulatory Affairs Team Is Already Tracking
Each of these regulations includes specific authentication and enforcement requirements. Acviss maps to all four so your compliance team is not building separate systems for separate markets.
Item-level serialisation with a unique product identifier, serial number, lot number, and expiry date is required for all prescription drugs sold in the US. Full EPCIS interoperability across the supply chain was mandated from November 2023. Non-compliant product cannot be legally sold or dispensed.
2D DataMatrix with unique identifier, batch number, and expiry date is mandatory on all EU prescription packs. Products must verify against the European Medicines Verification System at point of dispense. A dispensing failure triggers an automatic block on the product.
India's revised Schedule M mandates Good Manufacturing Practice upgrades including documentation and quality controls that support traceability. CDSCO has signalled track-and-trace requirements aligned with WHO prequalification standards. Early implementation puts you ahead of enforcement deadlines.
WHO prequalification for medicines sold in low and middle-income markets requires documented controls against falsification including authentication features on finished product. Manufacturers selling to UNICEF, Global Fund, or PEPFAR procurement channels must meet WHO-GMP requirements.
Three Tools That Work Together to Stop Counterfeits
Each product addresses a distinct part of the counterfeiting problem. Most pharmaceutical clients deploy all three so nothing falls through the gaps between authentication, monitoring, and traceability.
Each unit gets a unique cryptographic identity that cannot be cloned. Your QA team gets real-time scan alerts, geographic heatmaps, and DSCSA-ready compliance data from a single dashboard.
- Unit-level serialisation with tamper-evident holographic label
- First-scan-dispensed logic flags reused authentic packaging
- Consumer verification via QR with no app needed
- Scan geography heatmap shows where fakes concentrate
- DSCSA and EMVS compliance data built in
- Evidence export for regulatory and legal submissions
Continuous online monitoring so counterfeits do not scale undetected. Truviss watches pharmacy platforms, marketplaces, and social channels so your team only acts when a credible threat is identified.
- AI detection of counterfeit listings across pharmacy platforms and marketplaces
- Rogue pharmacy site identification and alerts
- Automated takedown evidence packaging formatted for each platform
- Social media monitoring for unlicensed sellers
- Grey market diversion alerts by geography
- Weekly threat intelligence report for your legal and IP teams
Blockchain traceability closes the supply chain gaps that counterfeiters exploit. Origin gives you an immutable chain of custody from manufacturer to dispenser, with automatic alerts when product moves outside authorised channels.
- Immutable chain of custody from manufacturer to dispenser
- GPS scan events at every supply chain node
- Automatic alert when a pack scans in an unexpected geography
- Diversion detection before product reaches the patient
- Batch recall capability in hours using traceability data
- CDSCO and FDA-ready audit trail export
See How Acviss Supports Pharma Product Authentication
Get a tailored product authentication plan for your Pharma products and channels.
- ✅ Risk Audit: We map your Pharma product, channel, and customer journey.
- ✅ Live Demo: See Acviss product authentication workflows on your use case.
- ✅ Tailored Rollout: Get a practical deployment plan for your products and existing systems.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When a fake scans against your authentication system, the result shows immediately. Your brand protection team receives an alert with the scan location, device fingerprint, and pack details in real time. The average client goes from discovering a counterfeit in weeks to minutes.
No. The QR code is not the authentication layer on its own. Each code resolves to a unique cryptographic token on our servers. A cloned code fails verification or triggers a duplicate-scan alert. Counterfeiters cannot generate valid tokens without access to our key management system.
Truviss tracks non-responsive platforms and escalates through alternate channels including domain registrar complaints, payment processor flagging, and regulator notification. For persistently non-compliant platforms we provide evidence packages formatted for IP tribunal submissions in the relevant jurisdiction.
This is more common than most brands want to admit. Origin traceability makes the distributor network transparent. When a counterfeit scan event appears at a specific node, the chain of custody data narrows down which distributor in the chain had possession at that time. That evidence supports contract termination and legal action.
In most cases no. Certify works with your existing pack format. We add a unique serial code and holographic label to your current packaging artwork within your normal print cycle. Clients with urgent timelines can use a stick-on label as an interim solution while the new artwork goes through approval.
Yes. Certify and Truviss are designed to alert your team when action is needed, not to create more manual work. Most clients manage the platform with one dedicated person. Truviss monitors online channels continuously so your team only engages when a credible threat is identified. Certify scan data is dashboarded and requires no daily manual review unless an alert fires.
Stop Managing the Fallout. Start Preventing It.
80+ brands use Acviss to detect counterfeits before they reach patients. Book a call and we will show you where your current exposure is.
