CertiRx Corporation Detecting Counterfeits and Fraud in the Global Supply Chain

The book “Dangerous Doses” exposed the dark side in the global medicine supply chain, with related events occurring at about the same time when Thomas J. Mercolino was heading a technology in-licensing group in pharmaceutical R&D at Johnson & Johnson. “As an R&D professional and a trained biologist, I bring a different perspective compared to other supply chain experts. It occurred to me that the counterfeiters were taking advantage of the lack of linkage between information systems, so we launched CertiRx originally as an internal startup at J&Jto link information systems better,” says Mercolino, President & CEO, CertiRx Corporation. CertiRx’s set of solutions makes counterfeits and frauds easier to localize and detect, thereby deterring the crimes.“Ready, localized detection is a deterrent to fraud, by analogy to a red light camera deterring traffic violations.” Mercolino says, and adds, “Our solutions share a common technology platform, designed for the highest possible security at the lowest cost.”

According to Mercolino, there is a transformation from a “supply chain” to a “supply network” and the corresponding new challenges for supply chain management will stem from having been thought of as a cost center to becoming a strategic competitive advantage. “Demonstrating supply chain safety and security without sacrificing speed is important to create competitive advantage,” says Mercolino. With a diffuse, networked supply chain, interoperable security is increasing in importance. Interoperable security is achieved, for example, if the authorizing documents, the labels for the product and the product itself all can be related through their security features. “The essential new capability that our solutions bring is product authentication that is interoperable with product tracking and tracing. We do this with a single technology platform to reduce cost, complexity and maximize benefits,” clarifies Mercolino.

Mercolino and his expert advisors believe that multiple layers of embedded security yield the best results. “Our underlying thinking in designing AuthentiForm and TraxSecur was based on layered security,” explains Mercolino.

Both solutions share the same technology platform, are designed for utmost security and cost-effectiveness, and embed proprietary data carriers that can provide useful data without raising privacy or commercial secrecy concerns.