Animal pharma counterfeiters threaten human food chain

Counterfeit veterinary medicines are putting animals’ health at risk and could have serious implications for the human food chain. These counterfeit medications could contain only a few or none of the active ingredients listed on the label.

Full traceability, including a documented medical history, must be supplied by farmers for their animals. However the entire system is now at risk from counterfeit medicines. To address this problem Denny Bros can include anticounterfeit and security features within its print, multipage labels, single ply labels, patient information leaflets, etc.

The anticounterfeit options offered by the company include coin-reactive surfaces, QR coding, deliberate print 'hickies,' cold foiling, fluorescent and thermochromatic inks and more.

Security and tamper-evident features available from Denny Bros protect users from illegal interference with important drugs. One option available is a label that, on peeling back, reveals wording such as ‘VOID’, showing that the product has been tampered with. Other options are radio frequency identification tags and acoustic tags, which will detect when a product has been stolen.

Denny Bros, who developed Fix-a-Form, the multipage label, can also incorporate unique serial numbers to identify and authenticate individual products. Product serialisation numbers aid product visibility and traceability throughout the drugs’ supply chain. Manufacturers are being actively encouraged to use them in the fight against counterfeit medicines from places such as China.

Machine-readable 2D matrix codes are a strong option and enable the user to access product information in one view. The information contained within these codes can be secured by encryption which locks out those who do not have permission to open it.

Denny Bros’ Sales and Marketing Director, Stephen Jerrold, says: 'Animal healthcare labelling is fast becoming more than just a functional requirement for identification of product and the fulfilment of legal obligations. In fact, labelling and packaging is playing an increasingly important role within this sector. Last year, according to the IFAH, £184m was spent in Europe on the packaging and labelling of veterinary medicines.'

Multipage labels provide additional pages for the inclusion of well-laid-out user guidance, ingredients and other information. They remain securely attached to the product or host container throughout the cycle of the medicine being taken. Furthermore they help to simplify and reduce packaging. A single multipage label can have anywhere from 2 to 120 pages of patient information, user guidance and instructions in one or several languages.

That’s why manufacturers have turned to Denny Bros. Their multipage label, the Fix-a-Form and other printed items with anticounterfeit properties can provide peace of mind for all concerned. Fix-a-Form is sold directly in the UK by Denny Bros, and beyond through their network of 20 licensed partners. They can all adapt its label to suit virtually any product or container, making it suitable for a multitude of different animal pharmaceutical applications.