Drug packaging security by means of white-light speckle

Protecting pharmaceutical products against counterfeiting or the fraudulent importation of donated and discounted drugs will remain a permanent challenge in light of the increased frequency of counterfeiting. The increasing complexity of the supply chain in today's global economy complicates certification of each individual supply source. This complexity is a key factor in the rapid increase of counterfeiting attacks, including those in countries where the supply chains are well established and trustworthy. In this article, an innovative solution based on the white-light speckle theory (visible speckle obtained as ultraviolet fluorescence) is applied to an ultraviolet source, which allows drug packages to be linked with a barcode. The basis of the proposed method is the biometric paradigm, applied to nonliving matter, which requires the identification of a unique distinctive matter characteristic for the unique identification of the related object. The identified characteristic is not an inherent characteristic of the object itself; instead, a white-light speckle pattern will be artificially added. This speckle pattern becomes a sort of fingerprint for the drug package. Starting from this pattern, drug packages can be authenticated by a biometric-like approach. This paper presents a concise review of pharmaceutical product anti-counterfeiting and introduces our white-light speckle method.