US-based Sproxil on Tuesday announced the launch of its operations in India and unveiled a product to check the drug counterfeit market.  Mobile Product Authentication (MPA) enables consumers to verify the authenticity of a pharmaceutical product by sending the unique code on the drug as a free text message to the manufacturers in real time, Sproxil CEO Ashifi Gogo told reporters.

Sproxil established the first national mobile-based anti-counterfeit service in Africa and has already sold millions of anti-counterfeit labels which provide services to several global pharmaceutical companies, the company said.
India has one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world, but is plagued by counterfeit (spurious) medicines made elsewhere that tarnish brand India, Gogo said.

"Our services enable Indian companies to reduce the presence of counterfeit medicines by connecting companies directly to their consumers in a scalable manner, using mobile phones", he added.

Sproxil recently received USD 1.8 million from Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund, to expand operations in India (which would get the lion's share) and Eastern African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The company said MPA product delivers automatic protection, simple labels and back-end analytics, and enables consumers to SMS an item-unique code for a rapid response that confirms a brand's genuineness.