Two promising approaches are coming to the fore in the fight against counterfeits: end-to-end authentication (as in the EFPIA Proposal) and complete track-and-trace chains (in Turkey and California). The Coesia Group has a variety of tools to make your organisation secure.
New approaches to combat counterfeiting present particular regulation challenges to modern companies. End-to-end authentication, for example, requires pharmaceutical companies to comply with a variety of country-specific legal standards.
The internationally successful Coesia Group has worked for many years to develop efficient solutions aimed at complying with these legal requirements. These solutions are achieved to the highest technological standards and flexibility, through modularity and the most impressive product quality. Several companies within the group are specialised in Track & Trace.
For instance, the Swiss Coesia member Hapa is the world market leader in the field of late stage customisation and on-demand printing technologies. German-based Laetus leads in the production of camera-based control systems for pharmaceutical packaging worldwide.
Both companies are complemented by the Coesia Software Business Unit and the Information Communication Technologies Department (ICT) of G.D, the leading international manufacturer of high-speed production and packaging equipment in the tobacco industry and a provider of complex software tools.
Secure printing
Hapa offers printing systems for marking pharmaceutical packaging that are based on the digital UV Drop-on- Demand technology (DoD). The high print quality of DoD, which uses UV inks, makes it particularly suitable for printing anti-counterfeiting security features.
These systems allow you to put the most diverse applications into effect and to process many materials cost-efficiently – even small batches are easily feasible.
The Hapa 800 BlisterJet prints on blank blisters that are manufactured in large batches using high-performance equipment and marked with a bar or matrix code. The Hapa 800 CartonJet is ideal for flat, erected, or even pre-printed cartons. And Braille dots can be applied to pre-printed cartons without compromising the quality of text or graphics with the Hapa 800 BrailleJet.
The Hapa 800 LabelJet marks labels with varying serial numbers and a 2D matrix code, making them ‘trackand- traceable’. Versatility is the strength of the Hapa 800 WebJet: it can be used with many different materials, among them aluminium, laminated film, PVC and many medical papers.
This broad range of materials is also covered by the Hapa 200 Hybrid Online Printers. They expand the advantages of inline UV Flexo printing with the option of individualised printing of pack forms using UV DoD technology; as a result, they are suitable for versioning packs.
The most recent development from Hapa is the RedCube. This has the twin advantages of encoding in high print quality with minimal need for maintenance. Compared to other commercially available encoding solutions, it reduces operating costs considerably – by up to one fifth.
Secure verification
The Track & Trace portfolio of Laetus is directed equally at flexibility and cost-efficiency. "We emphasise modularity in the development of our control systems," says Dirk Hendrik Kneusels, Managing Director of Laetus. "All our solutions are based on combinations of standard modules that are designed according to the specific application."
Whether the company is dealing with the printing of batch constant information, serialisation of individual pack forms, one-step aggregation or multi-step ePedigree, it undertakes to employ only the modules the client requires. As a result of its modularity, the high-performance system can be easily adapted to new applications and future marking requirements. In the long term, clients achieve investment security and a sense of certainty.
The basis of all Laetus Track & Trace tools is the gradually scalable PrintSpect system. Whether as a complete module or integrated into new or existing equipment, the combination of Laetus components and the modular software, Secure Track & Trace, offers clients a perfect solution.
Secure Track & Trace is a joint development of Laetus and the ICT Department of G.D. The Department has over 30 years’ experience in developing software solutions for industry. It draws on this experience for its expertise to implement complete applications and to guarantee that they are reliably integrated into different company software systems.
"Laetus sees itself as the value creation partner to the pharmaceutical industry," explains Kneusels. "With our innovative solutions, clients can meet their requirements in a time- and cost-efficient manner."
For example, with BrailleSpect, Laetus is currently developing a laser-control device for inline Braille checking. The underlying laser triangulation process has been filed for patent protection.
BrailleSpect decodes Braille and verifies height, diameter and the distance between the individual dots. The unparalleled reading speed of the application allows for belt speeds of up to 200 metres per minute. Consequently, control-related time losses are minimised.
With BrailleSpect Pharmaceutical, manufacturers can meet the requirements of the new European Braille Norm for Pharmaceutical Packaging, which specifies the height of Braille dots at 0.2mm from autumn 2010.