We have had a tremendous month at Sproxil. We’ve hit some major authentication volume milestones and just this week made two major announcements. Like Pfizer, Vodafone and WaterHealth, we made a commitment to improve the state of healthcare in several communities – in our case, by empowering consumers with tools to avoid getting ripped off.
Dr. Ashifi Gogo, CEO of Sproxil, announced Sproxil’s pledge to mobilize US $4 million over the next two years to expand efforts to empower patients and consumers with mobile phones in the fight against counterfeit medication in India and Kenya. It is estimated that over 700,000 people die yearly due to imitation malaria and TB medication alone. By using mobile phones, consumers and patients purchasing medication can text in simple numeric codes placed on the drugs to verify if a medicine is genuine. The text messaging service provides a simple “Yes, genuine” or “No, fake” based on this code. Working with the Nigerian FDA, Sproxil’s codes have already been used on over 1.4 million blister packs in Nigeria, with thousands of users signing up every month.
“The increasing popularity of enhancing Global Health activities with private sector entrepreneurship signifies a shift in thinking among experts and practitioners. Global Health projects reach those with little, and entrepreneurship creates wealth. By wrapping our business model around providing purchase decision support to those with little, we believe they will save money and increase their well-being, bringing new, locally-driven momentum to achieving the MDGs.”
Our work has got even more coverage:
- “Pfizer, Sproxil aid in safe drug access programs” – FiercePharma Manufacturing
