#1434 2009 · mPedigree (Bright Simons) · Pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting
Ghanaians check if medicine is fake by scratching a code and texting it
the problem
Counterfeit drugs kill; holograms and barcodes can't be read by patients with basic phones
background
Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are a deadly market failure in much of West Africa: patients cannot distinguish fake medicine until it fails to work, and the authentication tools of rich markets — RFID tags, serialized barcodes read by pharmacies — presume infrastructure and intermediaries that village pharmacies and market stalls do not have. The check has to be performed by the buyer, on the spot, with whatever phone they carry.
Bright Simons began work on the problem in 2007 and founded mPedigree in 2009: manufacturers print a unique scratch-off code on each pack (mass serialization); the buyer scratches, texts the code to a free shortcode, and gets an instant reply saying whether the code exists in the manufacturer's registry — a code already used by someone else, or absent, means counterfeit.
what everyone would do
Deploy RFID and pharmacy-grade serialization systems — a developed-market answer that costs more per pack than village-market medicine and stops at the counter the patient never reaches.
what they saw
You cannot inspect every pharmacy, but every buyer carries a phone. Serialize each pack, let the customer text the code, and authentication scales with purchases — each check is an inspection you didn't have to staff.
the move
The registry does the authentication: brands upload their serialized codes, telecoms carry the free verification texts, and mPedigree's GoldKeys web tools give brand owners real-time visibility of every verification event — geography and timing of checks reveal where counterfeits and diverted goods surface (its EarlySensor monitoring reports a 65 percent reduction in counterfeit circulation for three Nigerian pharma and cosmetics clients). By 2015 codes appeared on over 500 million packets for clients including AstraZeneca, Roche and Sanofi, with operations in Nigeria, Kenya and India.
why it works
The scratch code is cheap to print and impossible to reuse: a counterfeiter copying a valid code is exposed the second time it is checked, so mass verification crowds out clones automatically. Free shortcodes remove the cost barrier so checks actually happen at the point of sale, before the money changes hands. And because every text hits the registry, the brand sees counterfeit geography in real time — which is why the Nigerian clients could trace and squeeze fake circulation by 65 percent rather than merely detect it.
the payoff
National standard in 3 countries; 20 telecom partners, 6.5M packs by 2012 and 500M+ by 2015; 65% counterfeit drop reported for 3 clients
where it breaks
It relies on buyers actually checking — verification rates in unmonitored markets stay low, and Ghanaian critics reported the rollout stalling where enforcement didn't follow detection. Codes on packs mean nothing without regulators willing to act on the alerts; the model leans on telecom partnerships for free routing, and it authenticates the pack, not the pill inside a repacked box.
what came after
Phone-based pack verification spread from Ghana across Africa and into India's regulatory regime, and the pattern — buyer-verifiable scratch codes — extended to agricultural seeds and cosmetics.
references
- [1]New Africa: Ghanaian tech innovator Bright SimonsThe Guardian, 2012theguardian.com
- [2]mPedigree Battles Counterfeit Drugs Through Innovative Verification SystemInnovate4Health (George Mason University), 2017cip2.gmu.edu
Widely retold, only partly documented. Filed as hearsay.