Pharmaceutical counterfeiting and purchasing medicines from illegal distributions channels have become more and more common and a big problem in our country. Difference medicines and drugs are involved. An alarmingly high proportion of anti-malarial drugs brought in pharmacies and shops are counterfeit, and the problem has only increased significantly in recent years. Recent and widespread appearance of counterfeit artesunate tablets in several countries in South-East Asia including India poses a serious threat to health in this region. In some countries, up to 50 percent medicines are fakes, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) the growing counterfeit drug market is going to be worth a hefty $75 billion globally by 2010.

The difficulty to monitor the spread of fake drugs is that counterfeit medicines are easy to manufacture- they look like genuine drugs in packaging and labeling. Another problems is the wide availability of controlled drugs-narcotics, benzodiazepines, amphetamines and other internationally controlled drugs are easily developed in many developing countries. In addition, countries with weak regulations are most vulnerable to the marketing of counterfeit drugs. Illegal pharmacies and the sale of medicines over the Internet have aggravated the problem further. The rapid expansions of unregulated markets has dramatically worsened the situation. The problem of counterfeit medication and abuse of pharmaceuticals containing controlled substances bought without prescriptions has increased alarmingly and poses graves risks to public health.

The counterfeit drug industry is currently booming with estimates that the black market would reach $75 billion by 2010. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, barcodes and various other solutions have been offered to the industry as security measures. New holograms products like the ones manufactured by an innovative new platform technology which can react to simple stimuli such as breath or water to reveal a hidden image or change colour to confirm a product's authenticity, promise to be a novel arrow in the quiver of the pharma industry in its attempts to shoot down drug counterfeiters. These smart holograms as they are called, use a variety of polymers between layers of film which are turned to react to different stimuli. The polymers swell as a result of the stimuli and light is refracted in a different way, giving a visual response to verify authenticity. The smart holograms can be integrated into a supply chain to any extent a manufacture chooses, as the hidden image can be designed to fade and reappear as the stimulus is re-applied at a later stage, or employed as a single use feature with the revealed image remaining permanently.

The holograms can be used as a track and trace mechanism. and combined with specialization as well as hidden images to produce both overt and covert security features. The extensive technological research that has gone into the product and the manufacturing complexity will make it an unattractive option for counterfeiters, as is being fervently hoped by the industry.