Demand for packaging with anti-counterfeit features is growing. Globally, the market is expected to rise to $484.97 billion by 2033. This is almost triple the value that’s been estimated for 2024 indicates a recent report by Precedence Research.
With the pharmaceutical market accounting for the largest segment, packaging specialist at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag UK Ashlee Gough examines the latest techniques being deployed to counteract these infringements and different methods to safeguard product and named-brand integrity.
Sumitomo (SHI) Demag
Premium products and pharmaceutical safety demands traceability. Yet, even with stringent serialisation standards and covert technologies like barcodes, holograms, sealing tapes, and radio frequency identification devices to preserve the integrity of the products, counterfeiting remains a multi-billion pound industry. Last year Amazon announced its latest measure – the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX) – designed to help deter and make selling fake goods more difficult for counterfeiters.
With the e-commerce giant allegedly seizing seven million counterfeit products in 2023, steps are being made in the right direction. Yet, intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement still remains big business. So much so, that last year Interpol announced one of its largest transnational crack-down operations to-date - Operation Pangea XVI. Running between 3-10 October 2023, it resulted in 72 arrests worldwide, the seizure of potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals worth more than $ 7 million, 325 new investigations, and the closure of more than 1,300 criminal websites.
However, these are the visible parts that are being detected. The dark web is a whole different story with the repackaging of medicines, medical devices and wellbeing products resulting in even more complex and covert criminal channels.
Regaining control
Packaging manufacturers are supporting the concerted effort to tackle groups profiting from illicit products by making labels more difficult to copy and bottles harder to refill. “One way to counteract counterfeiting and product tampering is through the innovative design of packaging that cannot be easily copied,” highlights Ashlee.
Until recently, this may have involved putting shrink or foil sleeve around a pack or bottle. Closure moulders especially are stepping up their efforts and investing in dedicated cells to produce high quality and anti-refill closures made up of a number of complex parts, notes Ashlee. Due to the intricacy of these closures, moulding precision is paramount.
Significant investment in high quality tooling, automation, machinery and expertise can be another major deterrent, highlights Ashlee. “Realistically, few counterfeit operators would make the level of investment required to replicate this level of technical precision.”
Other packaging methods to deter counterfeits include concealing unique identifiers, such as a QR code, holograms or tags within the IML. While these can assist with track and tracing, Ashlee claims that they only really help to validate the origin of a container.
Another challenge for closure moulders supplying the pharmaceutical and wellbeing sectors is balancing the protection of consumers with usability. As well as child resistance (CR) closures, pharmaceutical companies need to provide for senior friendliness. The result is a significant investment by premium packaging suppliers in sophisticated valve technology to control the dispensing of product, while also preventing containers being refilled.
“Many new and innovative CR packaging concepts utilise complex and sophisticated opening mechanisms. These include tamper evident bands on custom closures that require pressure being applied to two points,” notes Ashlee.
To outsmart quick-witted counterfeiters, manufacturers may consider using several tactics simultaneously to prevent brand value being diluted. These can include secure closures, snap buttons, barcoded labels and batch codes, and even chemical markers.
Supply chain gets smarter
Use of infrared and ultraviolet (UV) light, microscopic tagging, molecular markers and biological tracers are also being deployed. These technologies can be identified by customs and enforcement agencies using laboratory equipment.
End-to-end visibility is one of the biggest developments on the horizon notes Ashlee. “An ultimate goal would be to create an unbroken chain of traceability.”
By recording every movement of a product during production and distribution, processors can create an immutable record of the product's journey from the manufacturer to the end consumer. This end-to-end visibility allows for real-time tracking and verification, making it exceedingly difficult for counterfeit products to infiltrate the supply chain. This technology is already showing great promise in tackling counterfeiting suggests the European Commission’s IP Helpdesk. Cost however can be a significant deterrent for SMEs.
To support these efforts, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag continues to develop an IoT dashboard to facilitate this data analysis, visualisation and traceability. Within this assistance system, additional autonomous and interconnected management information functions are being conceived to provide product authentication and details about the different production variables.
By tightly integrating all elements of the plastic injection processing, IML, robotics and data capture and management into a single turnkey cleanroom cell, part-specific traceability and process monitoring can be enhanced.
Given the overwhelming popularity of e-commerce, the risks of counterfeiting are more real than ever. “Any steps that brands can do to curb counterfeiting and protect trademarked brand integrity by making packaging harder to replicate or refill is welcome. As these blockchain-style technologies matures, counterfeit detection will become easier to spot and action,” ends Ashlee.
Members of the public and medical professionals can report a suspected counterfeit medical device or medicine product via the Yellow Card Scheme run by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The scheme collects, collates, and investigates reports of suspected side effects to medicines, vaccines, e-cigarettes, medical device incidents, defective or falsified (fake) products.