Packaging initiative to protect COVID-19 medicines against counterfeiting launched

AlpVision has announced it is launching the “AlpVision COVID-19 Initiative”, a programme aimed to help pharmaceutical companies protect their medicines relevant to COVID-19 against counterfeiting. The initiative involves using a crytoglyph on the packaging of the medicinal products.

According to the company, COVID-19 has caused not only the pandemic, but has also created unprecedented economic challenges. In response, AlpVision has launched its initiative to support pharmaceutical companies by providing them with the necessary tools to protect COVID-19 relevant medicines and vaccines against counterfeiting for free. 

To do so, AlpVision will provide pharma companies and their suppliers with all necessary tools to deploy a cryptoglyph on their packaging. The AlpVision Cryptoglyph is a digital security feature which can be implemented and deployed within just a few weeks. The company says it is invisible to the human eye and authentication of a product protected with a cryptoglyph can be completed using a regular smartphone. The company says that the smartphone applications connect to AlpVision’s Brand Monitoring System (BMS), a centralised server platform through which pharmaceutical companies are able to monitor in real-time product authentication activities and gain important insight into counterfeiting activities.

Authentication using smartphones [credit: AlpVision].

Furthermore, securing of packaging with a cryptoglyph is very easy as it neither changes the standard production process, nor requires additional consumables.

The AlpVision COVID-19 Initiative will start today, on 13 November 2020, and subscription will run for an initial period of three months. Participating companies will be able to protect their COVID-19 relevant products with no additional cost for the authentication feature. AlpVision says that it will provide this service gratuitously until the pandemic is officially declared as ended by the World Health Organization (WHO).