Blockchain Technology Battles Counterfeiting
The projected value of the global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is set to reach $1.77 Trillion in 2015, according to the International Anti Counterfeiting Coalition. Block Verify seeks to tackle this problem, with an initial focus on pharmaceuticals.
“Counterfeiting and piracy has increased substantially over the last two decades. Today, counterfeit and pirated products can be found in almost every country in the world and in virtually all sectors of the global economy.”
— – Pavlo Tanasyuk, Founder of BlockVerify
Despite efforts to prohibit trade in counterfeit goods the industry continues to grow. According to the Us National Crime Prevention Council, “more than 10 percent of all pharmaceuticals in the global supply chain are counterfeit. In some countries, fake pharmaceuticals account for 70 percent of all drugs in the supply chain.”
“The traffic in counterfeit drugs poses a grave threat to all Americans—and people everywhere.”
— – National Crime Prevention Council
According to the team at BlockVerify, the global impact of counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical sector is extraordinary. In the USA alone over 320 billion counterfeit drugs are sold every year. In the developing world pharmaceutical fakes average a staggering 30% of the supply, and millions of people around the world are consuming drugs which are poisonous or ineffective.
“Fighting counterfeit goods is one of the most challenging problems facing the world.”
— – BlockVerify
Many technology companies have attempted to overcome the ever growing industry. The M-Pedigree scheme, launched in 2007, provides the customer with a scratch off panel at the back of the packaging – revealing a barcode. This barcode can be used to validate the authenticity of the product.
“All these current solutions have been relatively unsuccessful in fighting fake goods. They are centralised and their systems have no transparency” explains BlockVerify, “The global counterfeit market has continued to explode under current attempts.”
BlockVerify are in the midst of creating blockchain based solutions to improve these anti-counterfeiting measures. Items are given a cryptographic hash, that can be verified with BlockVerify’s technology.
“Each item whether it be a Gucci bag, malaria medicine, iPad, or a diamond ring, will be given its own unique id that will be verified throughout our blockchain system. When an items ownership is transferred from one party to another we will have absolute verification when and between whom this transaction took place. We will remove the possibilities of creating duplicate records that current systems cannot help with,”
— – Tanasyuk
Ensuring quality in pharmaceutical manufacturing begins with the ingredients, which must be safeguarded through to final products. Effective oversight, and a secure pharmaceutical supply chain, will help to protect consumers from counterfeits as well as substandard production.
It appears that the size of the problem has negated effective control, “As policymakers grapple with allocating resources across multiple public policy challenges” the company claims. The solution to ensuring that the appropriate resources and prioritization are given to combating counterfeiting and piracy, according to BlockVerify, is “better information on the full scope, scale, costs and impacts of counterfeiting and piracy.”
To address the issues BlockVerify focuses on; Counterfeit Products, A product that is already in possession and is determined to be counterfeit; Diverted Goods, The system will be able to identify if a product was diverted from its original destination; Stolen Merchandise, The system can easily trace and locate stolen merchandise; and Fraudulent Transactions, BlockVerify will be able to identify fraudulent transactions of any type through their system.
“BlockVerify will give absolute trust to the supply chain that is very transparent. Every time a transfer of ownership occurs it will be recorded in the blockchain all the way to the consumer. We can offer absolute verification that a product is genuine with BlockVerify,”
— – Tanasyuk
The platform has already been tested with a pharmaceutical product trial, conducted in conjunction a Swiss company, and a beauty product trialled with a UK company. “We believe in the potential of blockchain technology to improve anti-counterfeit measures in different industries and have a significant positive social impact,” says Tanasyuk.
Similar to M-Pedigree, each BlockVerify product will be labelled with a verification tag – which can be scratched or peeled off. However, BlockVerify uses transparent and distributed blockchain technology to verify authenticity.
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