By Emeka Aginam, in Las Vegas
It may not be business as usual again as Sproxil, a US based company committed to protecting brands globally announced  how best  IBM technology will help pharmaceutical industry reduce drug counterfeiting by allowing consumers to verify the authenticity of prescriptions in seconds with their mobile phones.

Sproxil – at the ongoing Impact 2012 holding in Las Vegas, the United States of America, – announced that by  using IBM SmartCloud, is expected to  benefit  from the cost savings and scalability associated with a cloud environment while preserving the ability to take advantage of the security, existing applications, reliability, management and support services more typical of a private cloud.

With this collaboration with IBM, Sproxil is extending manufacturers’ ability to view and analyze real time consumer data to detect and prevent drug counterfeiting in developing countries, where 25 to 50 percent of medicines are believed to be counterfeit, costing the industry $$75 billion a year.

With the collaboration, Sproxil also uses IBM’s cloud service to provide clients with secure, reliable data access virtually anywhere.

Speaking to Journalists on the collaboration, Chief Executive Officer of Sproxil, Dr. Ashfi Gogo disclosed that Sproxil’s pharmaceutical clients, such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, have been able to combat counterfeiting by using the company’s Mobile Product Authentication (MPA) solution to affix a scratch-off label with a unique code to each package of medication.

He explained that upon  purchase, consumers are expected to  scratch the label to reveal the code, after which they will  send via a free text message to a telephone number provided on the package.
He further explained that after few seconds, consumers will  receive a return text message from Sproxil letting them know if the medication is genuine.

As a part of this process, Sproxil’s MPA solution, he said  produces a large, rapidly flowing stream of information concerning pharmaceutical sales and suspected incidences of counterfeiting that pharmaceutical manufacturers have access to through Sproxil’s client portal.

Using these and other new capabilities, pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world will be able to better manage and analyze petabytes of transaction data in real time. Now, pharmaceutical companies can more easily identify patterns in counterfeiting and deploy their resources accordingly, he said. 2012.

“Many of our clients are in locations where high-speed Internet connectivity is unreliable or nonexistent,” Gogo, said, adding that  “Through our work with IBM, we can enable our clients to render charts with high-speed, even in low-bandwidth situations. Through IBM’s cloud service, we are also able offer clients secure and reliable application availability no matter where they are located,”

“Sproxil continues to advance its MPA solution to make it easier for us to successfully prevent consumers from being subjected to counterfeit medications,”  Chokri Ahmadi, business director, Merck Group, West Africa Region, added.
According to him,  “The new dashboard will allow us to make better use of the data we receive through the client portal, which in turn should help our business and our customers.”

“Sproxil and IBM share a commitment to using technology to protect the health and safety of people around the world,” said Paul Chang, supply chain solutions leader, IBM.
“With the help of IBM, Sproxil and its clients are making prescription drugs safer for millions of people who live in areas where counterfeiting is rampant.”  he added.

Although it is a global issue, counterfeit medicines have become a critical issue for developing nations, with an impact measured in lives. For example, of the one million malaria deaths that occur worldwide each year, 200,000 are reportedly the result of counterfeit anti-malarial drugs. Additionally, the WHO indicates that 700,000 Africans die annually from consuming fake anti-malarial or tuberculosis drugs.