Why Pharma's Safety Net Must Follow the Medicine Home
Barbara Van Rymenam, Senior Director, Healthcare, Avery Dennison
The medicines supply chain may end at the pharmacy counter or the patient’s letter box, but the connection to care must continue beyond delivery, writes Barbara Van Rymenam, Senior Director, Healthcare, Avery Dennison.
Few industries are subject to the same level of scrutiny as the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Serialisation, chain-of-custody verification, and a growing web of regulatory requirements are intended to protect patients. Layers of checks have been designed to ensure that what leaves the manufacturer is exactly what arrives at the pharmacy. And yet, once a patient walks out the door with their medication, or receives it home-delivered, that entire infrastructure goes silent. The safety net stops at the threshold.
That gap matters more than it used to. As chronic disease management and high-growth therapy areas like GLP-1 receptor agonists shift increasingly into home settings, and as patients turn to online pharmacies in growing numbers, the risks that the supply chain was built to prevent are now landing directly in patients' hands, with no final gatekeeper in sight.
The Numbers Are Hard to Ignore
A recent study, The Patient Trust Gap [1], surveyed 5,000 patients across the US, UK, Germany and France. It found that six in 10 (60 per cent) of patients managing chronic conditions worry their medication might not be genuine. I think that number reflects a real and growing threat, which is playing out globally.
The WHO [2] estimates that around 10 per cent of medicines sold globally are counterfeit or substandard. The FDA and EMA have both issued specific warnings about counterfeit semaglutide and tirzepatide products, the very drugs now being prescribed at scale for obesity and diabetes management. Organised counterfeit networks have identified the commercial opportunity in high-demand, high-value therapies. Patients, often self-managing at home, are the ones most exposed.
The online pharmacy channel amplifies this risk considerably. Seventy percent of US respondents and 76 per cent of UK respondents have purchased medication from an online pharmacy. Of those, 45 per cent in the US and UK say counterfeit risk is their primary concern, ahead of price or delivery. And the context is sobering: approximately 96 per cent of the world's 35,000 online pharmacy websites don't meet regulatory standards, according to ASOP Global [3]. Patients are navigating a market where the odds of encountering a non-compliant source are extremely high, and most have no reliable way to tell the difference.
In our research, 37 per cent of patients questioned reported receiving little or no supply chain information about their medication. Three-quarters (76 per cent) want to know where their medication came from, how it was stored and when it expires. These are basic questions. The supply chain data to answer them exists. It just doesn't reach the person who needs it most.
We built the chain to protect the product, not to reassure the person at the end of it. Those aren't the same thing.
The Adherence Problem Is Equally Costly
Counterfeiting gets the headlines. But there's a second failure happening alongside it, and it costs healthcare systems $171 billion [4] annually.
Non-adherence. Only 43 per cent of patients in our study always take their medication as directed. Nearly half (49 per cent) admit to forgetting doses. Forty-eight percent find dosage instructions confusing. For chronic conditions, where consistent adherence is the difference between managed and unmanaged disease, these numbers represent an enormous and largely preventable burden.
I’d say the problem is structural. Once a prescription leaves the pharmacy, the brand, the prescriber and the pharmacist all lose visibility into what actually happens. There's no feedback loop. No reminder system built into the packaging itself. No way for a patient to tap their phone against a label and instantly access clear, personalized guidance on how and when to take their medication.
The majority (82 per cent) of patients in our study said they want exactly that. Digital guidance on correct medication use, accessible via smartphone from the packaging. Even more, (87 per cent) want to be able to contact their pharmacist directly from the pack. 78 per cent want digital reminders and lifestyle guidance. It seems these are baseline expectations held by the majority of patients across four major markets.
Smart Packaging Can Close the Gap
The technology to address both problems, authentication and adherence, already exists. RFID and NFC-enabled labels can give every medicine a unique digital identity, traceable from production to point of care. A patient taps their smartphone against the packaging. In seconds, they can verify the product's authenticity, check its origin and storage history, access instructions in plain language and set up reminders for their next dose.
A massive 83 per cent of patients in our study said they would find this kind of smartphone-based verification valuable - a clear signal from the market.
RFID and NFC healthcare solutions are designed precisely for this. Item-level digital identity and full supply chain traceability. Connected packaging that protects the product in transit and continues to serve the patient after purchase. The infrastructure that serialisation built can be extended, through intelligent labels, all the way to the home.
A Cross-Industry Responsibility
No single company solves this alone. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, packaging suppliers, technology providers, regulators and healthcare systems all have a role. The regulatory frameworks are largely in place for the supply chain. What's missing is the last mile, the connection between the verified product and the informed, reassured patient.
Channel preferences vary by market, we found. US and UK patients favor SMS. German patients lean toward email and apps. French patients are more evenly distributed. Any solution that works at scale needs to account for this. Single-channel approaches won't cut it for multi-market operations.
The shift toward home-based chronic care will continue to rise. GLP-1 adoption is accelerating. Direct-to-patient pharmaceutical channels are growing. What’s needed is for pharma to extend its safety architecture right to the patient's home.
Reference:
- https://rfid.averydennison.com/content/rfid/na/en/home/news-insights/press-releases/trust-in-medicines-shaken-by-counterfeit-crisis-survey-finds.html?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social-organic&utm_campaign=healthcare_patient_survey
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/substandard-and-falsified-medical-product
- https://asopfoundation.pharmacy/
- Source: Murray Aitken and L. Gorokhovich, Advancing the Responsible Use of Medicines: Applying Levers for Change (Parsippany, NJ: IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, 2012),
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2222541
Barbara works closely with leaders across pharmaceutical, medical devices and solution providers serving healthcare organisations - all of whom are using digital product identities. Much of her time is spent with product owners and senior leaders in packaging, operations, anti-counterfeit, manufacturing, and with system integrators. She is focused on protecting patient safety at scale, serving leadership with trusted data and improving efficiency through innovative solutions. Barbara's background spans innovation strategy, partnership development, marketing and commercial roles and cross-functional leadership in highly regulated settings. She is known for her collaborative and pragmatic approach, working alongside teams to explore long-term roadmaps that balance progress with responsibility. Barbara cares deeply about how healthcare systems evolve without compromising what matters most. She is always open to conversations with leaders who are navigating similar challenges and looking to move forward responsibly.
