AI-Powered Device That Can Detect Fake Drugs Is Now Available

For several years now, the volume of counterfeit medications that have made their way into trusted pharmacies and subsequently to patients’ medicine cabinets has been on the rise. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that at least 10 percent of global pharmaceutical commerce, or US$ 21 billion worth, involves counterfeit drugs (estmates provided by the Division of Drug Management and Policies).

According to TechCrunch, former Yale University students are developing an AI-powered device that will make it easier to spot counterfeit drugs.

The report says that Adebayo Alonge, Amy Kao and Wei Lui launched healthcare startup RxAll in 2016. The inception of the company was in response to their own experience with counterfeit drugs. For Alonge, it was nearly fatal after he took a medicine that contained a dangerous amount of diazepam, while Kao’s experience left her hospitalized.

When they were students, they were able to pick each other’s brains during a research and development project and found further information to validate their concerns. "100,000 Africans die from this problem every year. One million people die across the world from this problem," Alonge mentioned.

This led to RxAll’s inaugural product RxScanner, a device powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology that can authenticate medicine for quality within 20 seconds for users. Per the company website, over 300 drug types have been tested with 99.9 percent accuracy, and over 100,000 tests have been conducted in Africa and Southeast Asia. The device has been used in 15 countries and has helped over 500,000 people, the company says.

What’s more, the vision for the company has scaled, now serving as a drug delivery platform for 3 million patients across Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. It is also a marketplace for pharmacies and wholesalers to receive fundings to ensure drugs are affordable and accessible for patients, according to an article released by Yale School of Management.

"The vision is much broader now," Alonge said, according to the article. "Now, we’re raising the standards of health care delivery across Africa."

Counterfeit medications include drugs that contain no active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), an incorrect amount of API, an inferior-quality API, a wrong API, contaminants, or repackaged expired products. Some counterfeit medications may even be incorrectly formulated and produced in substandard conditions.