Most of us who work on developing and deploying technologies designed to protect the supply chain usually focus on anti-counterfeiting. But that’s only one of the elements in the list of illegitimate activities that can cause damage to the health of patients and the profitability of legitimate businesses who participate in the U.S. pharma supply chain. I include the following activities in that list:

• Counterfeiting
• Diversion
• Theft
• Tampering
• Up-labeling

These activities have all been detected from time to time in the U.S. supply chain for quite a few years, but the frequency of some of them has been on the increase over that same period of time. The question is, how much of each activity should we, as a society, tolerate before we step up counter-measures that are targeted directly on one or more of them?

THE RISE OF PHARMACEUTICAL CARGO THEFT

Over the last 18 months the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented rise in the value of drugs stolen in thefts of entire truckloads as they are being transported from point to point (also see this). I’ve heard lots of theories about who is behind it (organized criminals/gangs, of course) and where the product ends up (outside the U.S., most people think). Continue reading How to Stop Pharmaceutical Cargo Theft →