Surround Sound

Offering a range of security technologies for labels, Schreiner MediPharm considers the use of their advanced technical labels a company’s “first line of defense against counterfeiting,” says Huda Midani, business development manager Schreiner ProSecure, Schreiner MediPharm L.P. Schreiner ProSecure serves as a competence center, enabling Schreiner MediPharm to provide a wide variety of technologies, programs, and services intended to address clients’ product security challenges.

International regulatory and standards organizations advocate the use of multiple technologies. “Many brand owners are finding that even if one attribute is compromised, another provides a means to authenticate their product,” Midani explains. Potential solutions vary from online authentication of embedded codes on the product labels, hidden thermochromatic imprints that only become visible at low temperature storage, or unique closure seals that reveal a hidden message when opened for the first time.
Schreiner’s overt technologies include 2-D and 3-D holograms, color-shifting inks, guilloche and micro-text printing, thermochromatic inks, and many more. Covert technologies include LaserSecure and LaserHighSecure. 

Midani points to a recent initiative by a customer whose product was being tampered with in Latin America. Schreiner developed a tamper-evident authentication seal containing overt and covert features. “Upon field inspections they were able to determine product that was legitimately theirs versus suspect product not carrying this feature, while tracing the product’s variable data,” Midani recounts.

To address the challenges of diversion, Schreiner offers a serialization track-and-trace solution called KeySecure. Already employed in the automotive spare parts and pharmaceutical products markets, KeySecure has “proven to be successful in weeding out malpractice in the distribution channels,” says Midani.

To achieve such supply-chain integrity, Midani says that manufacturers must go beyond product serialization. “In the past, serialization was offered as the silver bullet. However, serialization does not necessarily provide a means to authenticate the product. Studies have shown that counterfeit product may penetrate the supply chain and still carry a serial number or license plate that has been copied from a legitimate, authentic product. Because serialized codes can be copied and reproduced for placement onto counterfeit product, serialization merely keeps track of the product to which that serial number/license plate is assigned. It does not ensure that the product is authentic.”

One combined approach is Schreiner MediPharm’s  digital authentication technology, BitSecure. BitSecure is a high-resolution copy detection pattern that may be printed in combination with the serialized code or may be a stand-alone authentication code. “This copy detection pattern cannot be copied without detection,” says Midani. “BitSecure can carry a payload, which can encrypt part of the serial number to further provide a means to cross-check and verify the data integrity of the 2-D DataMatrix serialized code.”

BitSecure produces a physically unclonable function, which may be detected by use of standard scanning devices, she adds. Schreiner provides brand owners with private key(s) and software to enable existing scanners to scan the BitSecure code(s) generated to authenticate their products. ■