MedSnap Launches Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Security Solution - MedSnap Verify Services

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- According to The World Health Organization 10 percent of medicines globally – and over 30 percent in some developing countries – are counterfeit, resulting in poor patient outcomes and decreased consumer confidence in pharmaceutical therapy. To help combat this public health crisis, MedSnap has developed MedSnap Verify Services which uses proprietary computer vision technology to verify the authenticity of a set of pills in seconds using only an iPhone camera and a Snap Surface. The convenience of the solution allows verification to be performed across the supply chain, including at the point of individual patient dispensation. MedSnap Verify Services is offered to pharmaceutical manufacturers to complement their existing supply chain security initiatives. MedSnap launched Verify Services today at LogiPharma 2014, the leading end-to-end supply chain meeting for life science and pharmaceutical industry professionals that focuses on strategic and tactical improvements that can be implemented across the globe.

"Our goal is to allow our pharmaceutical industry customers to establish a global surveillance network for counterfeit medications at a reasonable cost and with minimal hardware and training expenditures," said Patrick Hymel, M.D., CEO and co-founder of MedSnap. "The security of the pharmaceutical supply chain can be strengthened by innovative technologies such as MedSnap Verify Services to help patients benefit from medications while also increasing trust in the safety of those medications."

Using an iPhone, a durable Snap Surface and the MedSnap VR application, a user can 'Snap' a picture of pills and the application will visually assess pill authenticity with high precision. MedSnap's patent-pending technology authenticates a set of pills in seconds based on its visual fingerprint of the product. Visual fingerprinting is completed in partnership with the pharmaceutical manufacturer and is an ongoing part of the Verify Services solution. MedSnap technology can measure pills to within 0.1mm, differentiate between 244,000 shades of pill color and evaluate imprints using unique fingerprinting techniques.

"As pills are 'Snapped' worldwide, our team creates a statistical map of each pill's appearance based on visual attributes and imprint similarities," said Hymel. "This data is available for analysis to assist our customers in tracking similar counterfeit techniques and operations."

MedSnap Verify Services can supplement the use of existing screening tools, which can be expensive to deploy, require significant training to use and interpret, and may not provide centralized data useful for linking counterfeiting techniques and operations. The MedSnap VR app can be distributed globally and requires only an iPhone 5 or higher and a thin, durable, vinyl MedSnap Snap Surface to operate.

MedSnap also offers MedSnap ID which is a safety tool for clinicians to identify and screen an entire patient's medication regimen for drug errors. MedSnap ID is used by leading healthcare organizations across the U.S. to improve medication safety and adherence.

About MedSnap, LLC:

MedSnap provides mobile computer vision solutions for pharmaceutical supply chain verification and clinical medication history taking. With an iPhone® and a durable, reusable Snap Surface, pills can be definitively identified for supply chain security, medication history taking, or other applications. MedSnap fuses computer vision, mobile technology, industrial engineering, and analytic expertise to work with pharmaceutical companies and healthcare organizations to advance our mission of improving patient medication safety. For more information, visit www.medsnap.com.

Media Contact: Julie B. Wall | 205.323.8208 | [email protected]

SOURCE MedSnap