In 2011, the European Commission published Directive 2011/62/EC, the Falsified Medicines Directive (or FMD). Its goal was the fight against counterfeit medicines through serialisation and verification.
Similarly, in the US, the Drug Quality and Security Act (DQSA) was put in place by Congress In November 2013, calling for manufacturers to make prescription drugs traceable on a per-unit basis. The purpose being to help protect consumers from exposure to drugs that may be counterfeit, stolen, contaminated, or otherwise harmful.
This legislation affected packaging aesthetics and design. Laser ablation is sometimes used in drug packaging to create a mark, such as simple alpha numerical characters. Whilst this can offer a degree of effectiveness, the imaging area is often limited, restricting more informative serialisation content, and impacting the choice of colour schemes and branding.
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