Sproxil, a provider of brand-protection services, has developed a program designed to track donated food and healthcare goods as well as prevent illegal diversion. The company will present its Commitment to Action, “Preventing the Diversion of Medical and Food Donations,” at the 6th annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), taking place September 20–23 in New York City.

The company plans to aid donor organizations in preventing the diversion of drugs, medical supplies, and food and confirming the receipt of these goods by people in need. The anti-diversion program will be implemented in countries that receive large amounts of donated goods such as India, Nigeria, and South Africa.

“Beginning in 2011 Sproxil will leverage its mobile phone technology to empower patients and beneficiaries to verify that they obtained genuine medication and give donors better tools for remote monitoring and evaluation,” said Dr. Ashifi Gogo, CEO of Sproxil, in a press release. “Our goal is to have products like Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs) bear simple tags that end-users can use to confirm receipt of a donation with a basic cell phone, providing donors with a record that their relief efforts are bringing benefits to the right groups, not being funneled into accounts controlled by corrupt elements or criminals.”

Sproxil’s donation-tracking program is based on its expertise in what the company calls “participatory product tracking” in which consumers use cell phones to verify the legitimacy of products. Using LLINs as an example product, the program would work as follows. The LLIN bears a scratch off code. When a beneficiary receives the LLIN from the donor organization, he or she scratches to reveal the code on the product. That code is sent via text message and the person receives confirmation that the donated product is legitimate. At the same time, the donor organization confirms that someone has received the LLIN.

Under Sproxil’s anti-diversion program, donor organizations will have the ability to monitor and evaluate the status of the donated goods. “Sproxil will provide donors with analytic tools to track information in real-time and analyze historic trends,” Alden Zecha, CFO and strategist of Sproxil, told Pharmaceutical Technology. Sproxil is working with analytic software tool providers such as IBM to develop the analytical solutions, according to Zecha.

Sproxil has successfully implemented a similar mobile-phone-based system for anticounterfeiting in Nigeria, as discussed in Pharmaceutical Technology’s recent special report on anticounterfeiting technology.

The program will be presented today at the Technology Plenary session of the CGI. A webcast of the session is available on the CGI website.