How holograms can stop counterfeiting

The World Health Organization (www.who.int) estimates that annual earnings from the global sales of counterfeit and substandard medicines are more than $32 billion, while counterfeit drugs and packaging put people's lives at risk. Diversion of legitimate product outside authorized distribution channels is another problem.

In response to this problem, many of the world's leading pharmaceutical and medical companies have directed their efforts at authenticating their packaging as part of the process of protecting their products. As a result, diffractive, optically-variable devices—referred to generically as holograms—have become one of the most widely used overt authentication features on pharmaceutical products around the world.

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