Keep it Real: Print and Counterfeit Products

Counterfeit products are big business, and, as emphasised by the scare in the UK just a couple of years ago regarding Lipitor, an anti-cholesterol drug used by millions of Britons to treat heart disease, it can also be a potentially fatal one. Lipitor was prescribed by British doctors 11 million times during over the course of a year, and whilst a total of just 120,000 packs of the product are being recalled by the health watchdog, reports suggest that deaths worldwide from fake medicines are well in excess of 100,000 per annum. This issue, of course, is not confined to the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organisation’s Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition estimates that as much as 8% of all international trade involves counterfeit goods. Of even more concern to brand owners is WHO’s estimate of a 10 to 15% per year growth rate in the production of fakes. Given such worrying statistics, it will come as no surprise that much consideration is being given to this issue by major agencies and organizations throughout the world. In the US, for example, the Food and Drug Administration is part way through a programme to adopt some form of track and trace technology for the drugs industry, through the use of RFID technology. The FDA report also includes a project to evaluate a whole range of authentication technologies. What Can Print Do?Print, of course, should expect to play an integral part in the creation of packaging materials that provide as many cost-effective anti-counterfeit measures as are feasible. Leading press manufacturers have already made significant strides in this direction, and, through association with partner companies, many more breakthroughs are expected to be released during the coming months and years. One leading German manufacturer regularly releases information regarding its development work towards partial production of RFID systems on a printing press. As an initial approach, it is being investigated whether the antennae needed for the transponder can be printed directly on the substrate and the chips then applied. Using offset or other printing processes, suitably conductible inks or pastes based on metal or conductible polymers could be printed. The company has already exhibited RFID applications in practice using antennae printed with metal-based inks. It is also conceivable that foil transfer printing could be a viable process, and a number of suppliers have been demonstrating the potential of this with in-line foiling solutions. In PartnershipThese exciting on-press capabilities have also been incorporated with other security-focused products from within the PrintCity collective of suppliers. The PrintCity organisation recently integrated a significant number of products from its partners in two highly detailed and thought provoking sample packages. Whilst these samples imitate packages from the cosmetics industry, the security features included could be easily applied to similar cartons and packaging materials used with pharmaceutical, music, video, or telecommunications products. Systems using such elements as micro-text, thermochromatic inks, security pigments, optically variable images, and fluorescent inks all go to make the samples produced virtually impossible to copy without incurring significant costs. Even the cartonboard itself incorporates unique security features. In SummaryPrint has to work hard to keep one step ahead of the counterfeiters. Continued investment in equipment, along with a substantial investment in time to research the solutions that are available on the market, are both prerequisites for carton producers. Suppliers are working hard to provide new and sophisticated solutions, and carton producers must ensure the successful application of these systems in real world carton manufacture. http://www.bensongroup.co.uk