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Implementation of Counterfeit Protection Systems in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The objective of the conference was to show the activities of governments and legislation as well as the activities of the pharmaceutical industry in their fight against product piracy on the pharmaceutical market. The conference concentrated on effective and financially acceptable strategies and supporting the cooperation of the two groups among each other by putting up for discussion various actions for the worldwide fight against counterfeiting. During the accompanying exhibition, the U-NICA group showed a selection of their security solutions especially suitable for pharmaceutical products such as nhMARK™ for glass containers, scryptoTRACE™ for all kinds of packing and intraGRAM™ for plastic containers or blister packs.

The third ACF (Authentication Connections Forum) was held in Europe for the first time this year, with the event focusing on human-based forms of authentication versus digital identification and verification technology, evaluating the roles played by each and their interconnections.

As a bridge between the former Eastern bloc and Western Europe, the city of Prague provided a superb backdrop for the event, with recognized subject experts discussing the huge potential offered by authentication technologies and solutions.

The event organizers Reconnaissance International put together an excellent, interdisciplinary program consisting of presentations from international companies and institutes reporting on the latest developments and technical solutions.

The diversity of innovations in the telecoms market plus the sharp increase in demand for integrated track and trace solutions means that industry leaders must stay in constant dialog at an international level. It was shown once again that “open goods tracking” – involving printed 2D barcodes or RFID, for example – falls far short of providing required protection levels and must therefore be supplemented by a combination of visible and invisible security technologies.

This integrated approach links traceability at the product level with the simultaneous inclusion of packaging, labeling and/or accompanying documentation, and represents the long-established core competency of the U-NICA Group.

Brand and product protection specialists Matti Laakso and Samuel Schindler also showcased the available spectrum of real-world technologies for the international experts visiting the exhibition accompanying the ACF. The interest shown by the authentication community plus the feedback from many personal meetings both validates the event concept and marks out U-NICA as a first-class provider and industry leader in the integrated security solution segment.

The Forum provided an excellent introduction to the activities and trends in anti-counterfeiting within the American pharmaceutical industry and the US public authorities.

While the introduction of the law on e-pedigree requirements in California has been postponed to January 2011 (as was announced in an impressive video conference given by the Californian public authorities), there was no mistaking the fact that track-and-trace will come to play a crucial role in both the American pharmaceutical industry and in the world at large. A number of major pilot projects utilizing RFID chips were recently begun, although a number of these projects were then ultimately put on hold at several well-known companies for technical reasons. 2D data matrices are becoming more popular, although, as a number of speakers pointed out, a printed and hence visible code is not a particularly useful anti-counterfeiting measure.

The consensus opinion was that attempts must be made to combine track-and-trace with authentication, and that only a combination of multiple security features and levels can guarantee protection against counterfeiting.

Another noticeable trend was the opinion that traceability in pharmaceutical products should ideally happen at the level of individual articles, since the vast majority of all medicines are repacked – a fact that is becoming ever more common with re-imports (which are in themselves legal products).

With our new technologies, which enable the creation and registration of an individual fingerprint even at the level of a single blister pack, the U-NICA Group is extremely favorably positioned for collaborative work with the pharmaceutical industry and the appropriate public authorities in the future.

The expert conference on "Plastics in medical engineering 2008" was dedicated to the great potential shown by performance polymers and how they are processed for use in medical technologies. At the exhibition accompanying the conference, U-NICA presented its ideas for protection against counterfeiting. The focus of attention was on intraGRAM™ as an optimal protective feature for injection molded parts used in this sensitive area of applications.

U-NICA enjoyed great success with its presentation at the APM security technology conference. The German business action group against product and brand piracy (APM: Aktionskreis Deutsche Wirtschaft gegen Produkt- und Markenpiraterie), provided a forum on April 15, 2008, for security technology providers to present their products, systems and services. Samuel Schindler represented the U-NICA Group, opening the conference with a keynote address that was very well received.

The Global Secure Summit (GSS) is an international event with major global companies in attendance. The event brings together developers and solution providers in the area of security technology with the leading international brand manufacturers. The theme of this year’s event was “Leveraging new technologies, processes, products & materials to ensure brand protection & supply chain integrity.” U-NICA presented its innovative security solutions for product protection to an international audience.

For U-NICA, presenting at the Global Secure Summit for the first time, it was a great success. As a solutions provider with many years of experience in product and brand security, we presented four key technologies that together constitute a revolution in the possibilities open to those fighting against forgery and grey-market imports. The technology presentation met with great interest and led to many interesting and highly promising technical discussions with potential customers from Germany, Europe and all over the rest of the world.

All in all, U-NICA’s participation in the Global Secure Summit can be characterized as a very positive experience indeed.

U-NICA produces world-class security technologies. As a provider of all-round solutions to protect against product forgery, the U-NICA Group is on the path to global success...
Article in the technical journal “Mechatronik MC Cluster”, Austria.

The Swiss Plastics Association draws its members from the Swiss plastics industry, in which around 850 companies are involved. This year’s fall meeting of the work group focused on the subject of “Original or fake?” in connection with plastic products. U-NICA was keynote speaker at the event and the audience showed great interest in its two interesting lectures dealing with the subject of security technologies for plastics. These lectures, with the titles “Basic principles in product and brand protection” and “Forgery-proof injection moulding with the new intraGRAM™ technology”, opened up new perspectives in the area of product security.

LuxePack, held in Monaco, is the key event for luxury packaging. Exhibitors and visitors from all around the world, including Europe, America and Asia, take part in this important industry trade fair. Cartondruck is a leading provider of high-value folding boxes for the luxury goods segment, with production facilities in Germany, Poland and the US, and exhibits at LuxePack annually. U-NICA is Cartondruck’s security adviser and partner. The security technologies for high-value box packaging presented by both companies at the trade fair received an appropriately high level of interest.

The conference of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry at Neuchâtel on October 18 drew leading Swiss watchmakers to the event. Matti Laasko, Sales Director of the U-NICA Group, was in attendance, presenting innovative technologies and solutions for the protection of watches and their components against imitation and grey market imports.

The FachPack/PrintPack event (packaging printing and packaging production) is the key trade fair for packaging technology in Central Europe. At the special exhibition “Security from forgery in packaging” U-NICA launched a new visible security technology for plastic products. The intraGRAM™ technology, which U-NICA has now brought to production maturity, enables the integration of diffractive structures similar to holograms into the surface of the product to be protected, during the injection moulding process itself. The market showed great interest in the technology. This integration of security features directly into the surface of materials – a technology the U-NICA group specializes in – presents serious technological barriers to product piracy.

Mr. Samuel Schindler, U-NICA Solutions (Europe) GmbH, gave a keynote speech on the subject of “Verification levels for an efficient product protection”. The security levels extend from features visible to the consumer through to features that can only be examined under laboratory conditions and with suitable equipment. The latter level is especially important in cases where product liability is involved and legal attestation of plagiarism is required.

Restructuring of U-NICA into a corporation with several holdings and offices in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany. New market launch.

U-NICA assumes the majority holding in Actilor GmbH, NanoBio Security.