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Security Holographic Labels for a Pharmaceutical Company

More than 12 years ago a North American pharmaceutical company decided to use holographic labels to secure the contents of its medication packaging to protect its brand and mitigate product theft.

ORIGINAL SITUATION

• International pharmaceutical company with ethical medicine patents and OTC.
• Offers premium quality and guarantee on its products.
• The theft of medications results in consumer buying products without realizing they might be incomplete.

CHALLENGES

• Develop security materials to guarantee the packaging is intact without blocking critical information on the box.
• Create a holographic design that can’t be scanned, photocopied or photographed to be duplicated, thus guaranteeing to the company that the holographic seal can’t be substituted.
• Develop an adhesive that helps guarantee the self-destruction of the holographic label upon its removal.
• The labeling requirements for the production line are 200 holographic labels per minute.

MEASURES TAKEN TO OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES

• Developed transparent materials with high holographic brightness that allows one to see both the hologram and the information on the box.
• Created a special holographic design that is impossible to reproduce, with micro texts and security locks, which make a label secure from counterfeiting.
• Built a special application, in collaboration with adhesive producers, to cause the label to self-destruct when it’s removed from the box. This makes it impossible to substitute the label and also authienticates the product as original.
• Helped the client develop a supplier of machines for the production line labeling application system, working directly with the manufacturer and developing materials that can withstand the tension and speed required.

RESULTS

• Company successfully lowered theft and detected that it not only happened at the final point-of-sale, but also that medicine was subtracted in the supply chain.
• Implemented new machinery in the production line is without delays, applying up to 1,000 holographic labels per minute in airplane type boxes on both sides.
• Company positioned itself in the Latin American marketplace with great success by elevating the originality of its products and guaranteeing that they are complete at the point-of-sale.