 Pharmaceutical companies face a huge product counterfeiting and diversion problem. Sixty percent of counterfeited pharmaceuticals have no active ingredients at all. Nineteen percent do, but in the wrong dosages, and 16 percent contain different active ingredients from the ones the patient needs.
While the threat to human health is the paramount concern, counterfeiting and diversion cost the pharmaceutical industry tens of billions of dollars a year in direct losses, while increasing liability and insurance costs and impacting hard-won consumer trust.*
The right response
Pharma companies need a supply chain optimization solution that can help them comply with the tough new regulatory environment while addressing other security, safety and bottom-line challenges. The solution needs to combine technology, business requirements and a unique understanding of the industry.
HP’s Product Tracking and Authentication (PT&A) solution portfolio consists of a range of new and established technologies, solutions, services and expertise from a cross-section of major HP business units with years of experience working with pharma customers. HP has also leveraged the contributions of best-of-breed partners with their own specialized expertise: SupplyScape for pharmaspecific regulatory regimes, Nosco for smart labels and SAP for ERP.
Mass serialization is a major portfolio component, which involves the application of a unique identifier to anything from a single pill to an entire shipment. This enables tracking from point of manufacture/ shipment to point of dispensation, and enables a host of supply chain efficiencies in addition to increasing product security.
“We have a unique value to offer when it comes to serialization,” says Paul Behncke, North American Marketing Manager for HP’s Health and Life Sciences Industry Vertical. “We have a lot of experience with RFID, but we can also provide serialized print matrices used for printing 2D barcodes through our imaging and printing division and our smart label partner Nosco.”
Smart label technology is a critical component of any supply chain optimization strategy, especially when security is a key goal. The smart label category includes a range of printed security and identification measures, such as lot and serial numbers, expiry dates, traditional and 2D barcodes, and embraces overt and covert identifiers such as digital watermarks and the geometrical ‘guilloche’ patterns similar to those found on printed currency.
The strategic start
Iain MacNeil, HP Business Development Lead for Product Tracking and Authentication Solutions in the Americas, is quick to point out that HP has taken business requirements and not technology as the starting point. “We don’t want to present a ‘point’ technology solution, the way some of our competitors do,” he emphasizes. “That forces the customer to put all of its investments into one technology to solve all of its problems. Having a range of technologies gives customers a better opportunity to realize added value in their supply chains as they implement the solution. But more importantly, the portfolio is ultimately a strategy, not a technology fix.”
With business strategy in mind, HP offers a series of supply chain transformation services as part of the PT&A portfolio, drawing on established methodologies such as the processes, metrics and best practices contained in the HP BPM/SCOR (Business Process Management/Supply Chain Operations Reference) services. These can help enterprises reduce opportunities for counterfeiting and diversion, ease regulatory compliance, improve recall/returns management and reduce inventory and shortages.
HP also operates a PT&A Center of Excellence (COE) in Puerto Rico, where many leading drug manufacturers are based. In addition to serving as an R&D site for the ensemble of PT&A technologies and services, the COE enables pharma companies embarking on PT&A initiatives to see the full solution in action. The COE is living proof of HP’s strong legacy in the pharma industry, and of its long-term commitment into the future.
“With that kind of commitment,” says MacNeil, “customers who invest in the HP PT&A portfolio will find that they have an opportunity to leverage the whole portfolio. This will give them even greater value over the long term.”
*”Combating Counterfeit Drugs,” FDA, 2004.
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