Mumbai, March 18, 2011: FDASmart Inc, a US and India based management and pharmaceutical consulting/training company held it’s first AntiCounterfeiting forum in Mumbai, India. The event was held in cooperation with Mumbai-based NLINKS. The theme for the forum was to acknowledge the serious threat of counterfeit drugs specifically targeting issues in India including the issues related to the latest announcements from Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in India and Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) / the drug controller general of India (DCGI) on bar coding and serialization requirements for Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The event saw a convergence of speakers and industry experts from the US, Europe and India, and brought to the forefront not only the problems but present innovative solutions to win the war against counterfeiters who seem to get more sophisticated by the day. Participating Speakers included various stakeholders in the pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline Limited (GSK), Sproxil (who showcased their consumer-based anti-counterfeiting solution that is in nationwide use in Nigeria) , Cognex- a global state of the art machine vision and track & trace vendor, Bilcare, India’s leading nanotechnology serialization solution provider, Systech Inc-a New Jersey based serialization company, ACG Associated Capusles Pvt Ltd ( showcased its capsule encoded system), Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and FDA Maharashtra’s Assistant Commissioner Ram Banarse.

With regards to serialization, the event was an eye opener because it showcased case studies of serialization models applied by Big Pharma companies like GSK and AstraZeneca and how applicable could these processes be within the business models of Indian Pharmaceutical companies. It also brought to light the reasons for companies not adopting serialization processes.

Said Daryll Mascarenhas from GSK, “According to a survey 75 per cent of companies do not use RFID technologies for two reasons – one because there is no mandate imposed on them and secondly because they feel its an expensive process and not the demand of the time.” Companies who adopt serialization methods either use it for track and trace methods or to keep a check on anti counterfeit drugs. Giving a big pharma perspective, Mascarenhas also highlighted the benefits of serialization which included tracking hazardous material and its documentation, identification, tracking of obsolete products .

Unfortunately, Indian companies are not geared up for the serialization model because they believe that bar coding is a cumbersome and an expensive process whereas it can help actually them combat against the growing counterfeit market.

Said Dr Praful Naik , CSO, Bilcare Research, “Duplicators have become extremely sophisticated in their technologies and are also supplying their products to global markets too. Hence, technologies to check counterfeit drugs should not just be used track and trace of stocks but also to check whether a medicine is authentic because the problem is a duplicator today uses sophisticated technologies to produce counterfeit drugs. Using a technology which can prove the authenticity of a drug becomes crucial.”

The event also saw the announcement by Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL ) about the pre-launch of its mobile health solutions as part of their nationwide VAS services in India. The forum’s panel discussion moderated by FDASmart’s CEO-Founder Ram Balani explored in depth the controversial DGFT and DCGI barcoding and serialization mandates.