Growth of international free trade and inadequate drug regulation have led to the expansion of trade in counterfeit drugs worldwide. Fraudulent drugs harm or kill millions around the world and inflict serious damage on the brand names and bottom lines of major pharmaceutical manufacturers. Although less developed markets have long been their stronghold, pharma counterfeiters are now using digital channels to penetrate developed countries, where traditional physical drug distribution networks are well protected. Companies have plowed billions of euros into defensive measures, but their efforts haven’t slowed counterfeiters. Common anti-counterfeiting tactics block about half of the fake drugs, at most. New regulatory initiatives, meanwhile, leave large gaps for criminals to exploit. Technological protection is seen to be the best way to avoid this problem. Different technologies came into existence like overt, covert, and track and trace technologies.This review emphasises ideal technological characteristics, existing anti-counterfeit technologies, and their adoption in different countries. Developed countries like the USA have implemented RFID while the European trend is towards 2D barcodes. The Indian government is getting sensitised about the extent of the problem and has formulated rules mandating barcodes. Even the pharmaceutical companies have been employing these technologies in order to detain illegitimate drugs in their supply chain.

This conference overviews and integrates the business and technical problems that pharmaceutical companies should be aware of in order to fight the major global problem of counterfeit medicines. In addition to discussion of the problems, this conference addresses serialisation; track and trace analytical techniques scientists use to detect counterfeits and identifying solutions to the threat of counterfeit medical products. It gives us immense pleasure in welcoming you to “2nd Annual Pharma Packaging, Labelling, Serialisation, Track and Trace 2019".