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An African Startup Using Phones to Spot Counterfeit Drugs

50 points by SQL2219 11y ago

chaostheory 11y ago
This is clever. Hopefully they expand to Asia soon.
- gruez 11y ago
  >This is clever not really. I've seen systems like this years ago. off the top of my head I can think of xiaomi, which uses a similar system to authenticate its products.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    hmmm has anyone else done this with drugs in Asia yet? Personally I haven't seen it and this is really needed
vessenes 11y ago
Bright and Ashifi both launched the company together in 2007 or so. Ashifi was at Dartmouth, Bright was maybe in London at the time. Bright was the promoter, Ashifi the technical genius. They parted ways, and Ashifi went on to found Sproxil with the same technology; he's a good guy and solid engineer. Of course, promotion skills matter -- but, I'd rather see stories about Sproxil!
- pavornyoh 11y ago
  > But, I'd rather see stories about Sproxil.. Agreed. I quick search shows Ashifi Gogo has some solid achievements under his belt. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproxil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproxil
- tournesol 11y ago
  The mention of the other player Pharmasecure being based in Lebanon, NH (just down the road from Gogo's alma mater Dartmouth) caught my attention. It appears the founders were also involved with Gogo near the beginning. [1] http://thedartmouth.com/2011/10/28/pharmasecure-receives-39-million/ http://thedartmouth.com/2011/10/28/pharmasecure-receives-39-... [2] http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/winter09/html/vs_drugs.php http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/winter09/html/vs_drugs.php
  - vessenes 11y ago
    That's interesting! It was Bright and Ashifi and a former colleague of mine on the initial patent filing, but much of the tech transfer help came from Dartmouth folks, whether formally or informally, I don't recall. I hadn't heard of these folks. It's such a simple and useful idea, I'm not surprised that there are multiple attempts to deploy it.
MichaelGG 11y ago
The final issue to overcome (after adoption - getting everyone to put codes on their products and getting folks to know to verify) is fake authentication systems. Nothing stops an attacker from printing up codes and writing "Verify online at e-pedigree.com" or "Text <number> to verify". It almost needs to be a country or world-wide single authority so people know one single number/app/site to trust.

50 points by SQL2219 11y ago

chaostheory 11y ago

This is clever. Hopefully they expand to Asia soon.

gruez 11y ago
>This is clever not really. I've seen systems like this years ago. off the top of my head I can think of xiaomi, which uses a similar system to authenticate its products.
- chaostheory 11y ago
  hmmm has anyone else done this with drugs in Asia yet? Personally I haven't seen it and this is really needed

vessenes 11y ago

Bright and Ashifi both launched the company together in 2007 or so. Ashifi was at Dartmouth, Bright was maybe in London at the time. Bright was the promoter, Ashifi the technical genius. They parted ways, and Ashifi went on to found Sproxil with the same technology; he's a good guy and solid engineer. Of course, promotion skills matter -- but, I'd rather see stories about Sproxil!

pavornyoh 11y ago
> But, I'd rather see stories about Sproxil.. Agreed. I quick search shows Ashifi Gogo has some solid achievements under his belt. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproxil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproxil
tournesol 11y ago
The mention of the other player Pharmasecure being based in Lebanon, NH (just down the road from Gogo's alma mater Dartmouth) caught my attention. It appears the founders were also involved with Gogo near the beginning. [1] http://thedartmouth.com/2011/10/28/pharmasecure-receives-39-million/ http://thedartmouth.com/2011/10/28/pharmasecure-receives-39-... [2] http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/winter09/html/vs_drugs.php http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/winter09/html/vs_drugs.php
- vessenes 11y ago
  That's interesting! It was Bright and Ashifi and a former colleague of mine on the initial patent filing, but much of the tech transfer help came from Dartmouth folks, whether formally or informally, I don't recall. I hadn't heard of these folks. It's such a simple and useful idea, I'm not surprised that there are multiple attempts to deploy it.

MichaelGG 11y ago

The final issue to overcome (after adoption - getting everyone to put codes on their products and getting folks to know to verify) is fake authentication systems. Nothing stops an attacker from printing up codes and writing "Verify online at e-pedigree.com" or "Text <number> to verify". It almost needs to be a country or world-wide single authority so people know one single number/app/site to trust.