We are glad to announce that Egbe Osifo-Dawodu has joined our team of advisors at Sproxil.
Egbe is a partner at Anadach Group which focuses on bringing innovative solutions to health care dilemmas in emerging markets. She recently joined Anadach from the new innovation practice at the World Bank Institute where she led the pilot innovation fair on fragility and conflict in South Africa. Egbe won one of the first innovation awards in the World Bank Group (the precursor to the development marketplace).

Prior to joining the innovation practice, she helped start the African University of Science and Technology in Abuja, Nigeria, managed the Human Development Group at the World Bank Institute, and worked on health policy at the World Bank and on private health sector projects at the International Finance Corporation. She has over 20 years experience in health care, covering policy, provision and health care financing in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Latin America. She has also taught at universities in the Washington DC area. Egbe is a medical doctor with a degree from the University of Ibadan and a member of the UK Royal College of Physicians. She holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and an MSc from Oxford University. She has also attended courses on the business of entertainment at the University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles and co-founded the Nollywood Foundation based in California.

See more on our accomplished multi-national team here: http://sproxil.com/team.php

We are glad to announce that Sproxil will be participating in this year’s Mobile Health Expo in Las Vegas. Our CFO and Strategist, Mr. Zecha, will give a talk titled “Using Mobile Authentication Services to Improve Health in Developing Worlds” at the conference on Oct 20th. To learn more about the conference, visit http://mobilehealthexpo.com.

Are you wondering whether the drugs you have just picked up from your local pharmacy will kill you, save your life, or make your disease drug resistant? Counterfeiting is a common problem and is a cause for serious concern. What if you could read a code on a panel on a drug package, send a simple text message containing that package’s unique code, and get back a message that the drugs were authentic and safe or fake to use? Does it sound like a vision of the future? Well it isn’t. It’s already here today. After successfully completing an initial test from February to May, Sproxil’s Mobile Product Authentication ^TM (MPA) is now in full release in Nigeria and has already received interest from a number of other countries.
MPA is an anti-counterfeiting system that allows you to test your drugs when you buy them. MPA uses simple methods to conquer a difficult problem. You do not need to buy or own any specialized device or equipment to check a drug. The solution provides automatic protection against counterfeiters. It is a quick, easy and effective way to discover whether drugs are real or fake. It is a very reliable service and doesn’t need any maintenance, calibration or regular testing like devices.

One of the greatest benefits of Sproxil’s anti-counterfeiting system is that it can be used by consumers without any technical hassles. The end user can make use of this opportunity to safeguard himself from the potential dangerous effects of fake drugs. Sproxil’s solution benefits governments, drug regulators and law enforcers, industry and professionals, foreign donors, foundations, and especially consumers. Everyone wins, except for the counterfeiters that is.



MSNBC’s video showing real and fake products side by side is very interesting. It highlights the challenges faced by consumers everyday as they seek to avoid fake products in the $600 billion counterfeit marketplace.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Counterfeit drugs are being labeled as one of the most dangerous terrorists by Wiltshire C.N. Johnson, the Registrar of the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone. He said that counterfeit drugs are responsible for many deaths of people in the society. According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), up to 30% of medications on the market in developing countries such as Africa are counterfeit. Counterfeit medicines are deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or sources. They are typically designed to fool buyers by using misleading packaging and mimicking the shape, color, size and imprints of genuine drugs.
Counterfeit medicines pose a significant public health risk. They can lead to treatment failure, organ dysfunction and damage, worsening chronic disease condition and can cause early death. The intake of fake drugs has an adverse effect on the immune system as well. This affects the recovery of a patient from the disease process. Johnson told journalists at a symposium held at the conference room of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists in Freetown that drugs counterfeiting was not a new phenomenon, noting that “it is a murder perpetuated by faceless money makers.”

Globally, there is ample evidence of the presence of organized criminal networks in counterfeit pharmaceutical trafficking. Johnson claimed that drugs counterfeiting was a corporate global network and that people sell them because they want to make money. “The fight against drugs counterfeiting should not be left in the hands of the pharmacy board alone but needs the cooperation of everyone,” he noted.

In 2010, the illegal market in counterfeit medicines alone is expected to raise approximately US$75 billion in revenues for smugglers. This represents an increase of 92% compared to 2005. In some African and Asian countries reports are that up to 90% of medicines are counterfeit. The loss of life resulting directly and indirectly from the proliferation of counterfeit pharmaceuticals has already taken on huge proportions. The time to intervene is now. Every day counts in this battle against these killers.

Counterfeit drugs, including fake, substandard, adulterated or falsely labeled medicines, have become a growing threat to global health. The problem is especially serious in developing countries. Thousands of people die from ineffective medicines and millions more from the drug resistant strains of pathogens. A 2009 report from the International Policy Network revealed that fake tuberculosis and malaria drugs alone may kill about 700,000 people a year.
Perhaps the greatest single widespread disease being boosted by the presence of fake drugs is malaria. A 2006 study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene found that 68 percent of anti-malaria drugs found in Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia did not contain the correct amount of active ingredient. Malaria claims a child’s life every thirty seconds and over a million lives annually but the WHO estimates that 200,000 of those deaths could be prevented if all anti-malarials were genuine.

Counterfeit malaria drugs are contributing to a growing resistance to the treatment of disease. Many drugs are cheaply made and do not contain the right chemistry or are stored at incorrect temperatures. Some of them are deliberate fakes that have authentic looking pills and packaging but contain only a small percentage of the active ingredient in each pill. Resistance to a drug develops when the pathogen is exposed to low levels or incorrect doses of a medication.

Counterfeit drug makers have learned to thwart the system by adding minimal levels of active ingredients so that quality screening tests reveal a false positive.  These types of counterfeits are ineffective at killing the parasite infection and increase the likelihood of mutation and resistance. People in Cambodia are unknowingly using improper drugs and fake drugs which create resistance. This is causing the death of growing numbers of Cambodians from malaria even while taking anti-malarial medicines.

A recent study conducted a quality assessment test of available anti-malarials in six urban or rural settings in southeast Nigeria. Thirty seven percent of the tested drugs did not meet USP standards. Furthermore, this study implied that drug quality in rural settings was significantly worse than in urban settings, with 66% of quinine medications were substandard as compared to 43%, respectively. This suggests that the poor socio-economic groups often receive the lowest quality of treatment, perpetuating a cycle of poverty in endemic areas.

Counterfeit drugs are a major barrier to combating malaria throughout the underdeveloped world. Consumers can only protect themselves by paying attention to the drugs they take. The idea is to closely examine drugs, use available anti-counterfeiting solutions and report anything suspicious to appropriate authorities.

Every day in some parts of the world, consumers have to face a key decision point. “Should I go for the red shoes or the blue ones? Wait for next year’s model, or go for that new car next week?” In many developing nations, consumers often have to deal with this decision too: “Which anti-malarial will cure (and not kill) my toddler?”…

See more here and catch our mention on helping solve the pharmaceutical cargo theft and diversion problem here.

Sproxil has just been recognized by Unite For Sight, a leading NGO that has provided high-quality eye care to 1,000,000 medically underserved persons so far. To the admiration of many, Unite For Sight has far exceeded its original goal of bringing affordable healthcare to deprived communities, and now shares its experience on how to make significant impact in Global Health with the next generation of social impact drivers. We hold their work in high regard, that’s why we decided to participate in their annual Global Health/Innovate conference last quarter.
As part of their programs, Unite For Sight operates a Global Health University with many resources available through their website for free. Unite For Sight’s Global Health University prepares young and bright minds towards making an impact in society by addressing healthcare concerns. With the appropriate support ecosystem, such passionate change drivers can become tomorrow’s global leaders. If you take a look at the Clinic Challenges in Resource-Poor Settings Online Course you will see the Sproxil case study.

We continue to work with highly reputable independent organizations to assess our impact and we’ll keep you posted – we’ve got some good stuff coming this quarter.