Chandan Pat, Essentra’s business development manager, said, “With the rising threat of counterfeit drugs on the market, it is essential that the pharmaceutical industry acts now to ensure that all products have multiple layers of security, including tamper verification, authentication and serialisation features.”

Referring to the WHO and Assocham data, Pat highlighted that 35% of counterfeit drugs supplied worldwide come from India and 25% of medicines sold in India are fake, counterfeit or substandard.

 “The concentration of fake drug manufacturers can largely be found in Bahadurgarh, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Bhiwadi, Ballabhgarh, Sonepat, Hisar and Punjab. With overt, covert and forensic security strategies on packaging, brands can fight counterfeiting effectively,” added Pat.

Essentra is exhibiting a portfolio of security offering, including serialised cartons, integrated authentication designs, its Patron Taggant system and tamper verification labels.

Essentra also showcased its new Patient Adherence Pack, which is an informative pack that explains and illustrates the six key features packaging should adopt to improve levels of patient adherence: tamper evident features, infographics, temperature indicators, crumple zones, alert cards and instruction booklets.

“With tamper verification solutions that simply illustrate if a pack has been previously opened, and serialisation and authentication solutions that verify the legitimacy of the pharmaceutical contents, we provide multi-layer protection for both the packaging and the contents inside.”

Headquartered in the UK, Essentra ventured into the Indian packaging market in 2016, with the acquisition of pharmaceutical packaging assets of Bengaluru-based Kamsri Printing & Packaging. Currently, Essentra manufactures folding cartons with value added security features, going ahead, according to Pat, the company will add patient information leaflets to its portfolio in coming months.