Mission

Beginning with the West African country of Ghana, the mPedigree program is en route to establish national enhanced drug supply chain protection systems for all 48 sub-Saharan African countries in ten years, before expanding the program to other developing countries in South Asia, South America, the Middle East and North Africa, resources permitting.

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Relying on the widely available GSM mobile communication system, the program will achieve results similar to Western undertakings in this area that rely on expensive RFID, EMID optical, nanotechnological and internet-intensive technologies. MPedigree will be doing this on a budget several times smaller than would have been the case without the massive proliferation of the extremely cost-effective GSM technology. Where the level of risk demands it, pharmaceuticals will be mass-serialised at the unit level to ensure end-user participation in the anti-counterfeiting scheme. In other areas where submarket-diversion is deemed to pose the most sustained risk, supply chain consolidation methods will be employed to link manufacturers, distributors and retailers along regulated drug supply routes.

Various actors in pharmaceutical distribution networks will receive training and tools to manage documentation and pedigree information so as not only to contribute to the securing of the national drug supply but also to achieve higher performance on enterprise-related tasks in logistics management, inventory keeping and regulatory compliance. In the end, our goal is not restricted to preventing regrettable deaths, but also to promoting the growth of vital pharmaceutical industry and commerce throughout the developing world, and especially in Africa.

In that regard, we envisage a vast mobilisation of stakeholders within and across national frontiers, including health and safety regulators, healthcare professionals, consumers, drug manufacturers, distributors and retailers, health sector NGOs, trade and professional associations, and regional and international advocacy and action groups interested in health MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).

We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge we have set ourselves. These pages are replete with evidence of the difficulty of securing drug supply routes even in the most affluent of geographical regions. However we are assisted by the unprecedented rise in concern across the globe over the issue of ridding developing world markets of substandard, subpotent, and outright fake medication, which has seen an astonishing marshalling of opinion in international civil society in favour of immediate action. We are also emboldened by the availability of novel systems that employ mature technology to deliver amazing results at a cost several times below what has to date been the norm for undertakings of this size.

MPedigree, in collaboration with its partners, pioneered a groundbreaking GSM-based technology to serve as the bedrock of this initiative, steering the enterprise abreast powerful tides formed by the ongoing mobile revolution in the developing world. Already predictions abound in many informed circles that in Africa, for instance, mobile teledensity may hit the 70% mark in the next few years. In the view of mPedigree proponents, it will be unpardonable not to take advantage of this good fortune to deliver health safety benefits to the deserving millions of the Global South.

We trust that we can rely on your support.