Countering Fake Medicines

Article

A Bloomberg Businessweek article by Simeon Bennett describes two rival mobile phone-based systems designed to help African consumers verify whether antimalarial and other medicines are genuine, in a region where fake drugs are a significant contributor to preventable deaths. Ghanaian startup mPedigree, working with Hewlett-Packard, and a rival system developed by Sproxil let buyers text a unique code printed on a drug’s packaging to receive an immediate reply confirming its authenticity, with mPedigree alone trialling codes on some 125,000 packets of malaria medication in Ghana and Nigeria.