Impact of Post Marketing Surveillance on Falsified Medicine in Nigeria

The thesis aims to evaluate the impacts of post marketing surveillance on falsified medicines among healthcare professionals (medical doctors and pharmacists) and consumers in Nigeria by conducting a questionnaire-based survey for quantitative research. in order to achieve this, the awareness and knowledge of falsified medicines, factors affecting effective post marketing surveillance in Nigeria and recommendations to improve adequate post marketing surveillance of falsified medicine in Nigeria. The healthcare professionals (medical doctors and pharmacists) and consumers were evaluated to ascertain their level of awareness and knowledge of falsified medicines, healthcare professionals’ direct experiences to post marketing surveillance guidelines and frequencies of falsified medicine cases during their experience. The efficiency of Mobile Authentication Services (MAS). Sixty-six (66) respondents voluntarily participated and responded accordingly to the questionnaire structured survey.20 (30.0%) respondents were medical doctors, 24 (36.0%) respondents were pharmacists while 22 (33.0%) respondents were consumers. There was an absolute 100.0% respondents to willingness to update their knowledge about guidelines and regulations of post marketing surveillance of falsified medicine. Their most preferred method was through current guidelines from regulatory bodies. There were factors associated with inadequate impacts of post marketing surveillance which included NAFDAC regulatory policies, social economic status of the country and cost implications. Increasing awareness of falsified medicines was recommended to be implemented by continuous advertisements through internet, radios and newspapers. Designing and implementing new applicable regulations to help improve post marketing surveillance

Anti-Counterfeiting Warnings: Do they Influence Consumer Behavior and Perception of Overt Indicators?

This study examined if overt anti-counterfeiting indicators on product packages and warning labels added to the product, informing that the product might be a counterfeit, influenced participants to spend more time examining the product package for genuineness. The overt indicators used were a QR code, and a holographic security tag that were added to packages as a sticker. There was little research regarding what consumers were looking for when examining a product package to determine if the product was genuine or counterfeit. Arguments for both involving the consumers in the counterfeit identification process, and not involving the consumers in this process were found in previous literature. In this study, the participants wore a set of eye tracking glasses and were given 13 different products to examine, some with no added indicators, some with added QR code indicator, and some with holographic security tag added indicator. Half of the subjects saw the added warning label sticker, and the other half saw the same products with no added warning label. After the participants finished viewing each of the products, they filled out a survey that asked them if they thought the product was genuine or counterfeit, how likely they would be to purchase the product, how much they trusted that the product, and what it was about the product that made them rate it this way. The total amount of time that the participants spent examining the product package, as well as the total amount of time the participants spent examining the added overt anti-counterfeiting indicators on the product package were measured as well. The results revealed that the warning label did have an overall effect on the total amount of time that the participants spent examining the product package, and there was no difference on total time between the two types of indicators. Participants did not pay more attention to one indicator over the other. Further research will be needed to examine true counterfeit products when compared to genuine products, after the addition of the warning labels and the overt anti-counterfeiting indicators to the product package

Non-destructive detection of counterfeit and substandard medicines using X-ray diffraction

The prevalence of counterfeit and substandard medicines has been growing rapidly over the past decade, and fast, non-destructive techniques for their detection are urgently needed to counter this trend. In this thesis, both energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDXRD) and pixelated diffraction (“PixD”) combined with chemometric methods were assessed for their effectiveness in detecting poor-quality medicines within their packaging. Firstly, a series of caffeine, paracetamol and cellulose mixtures of known concentrations were pressed into tablets. EDXRD spectra of each tablet were collected both with and without packaging. Principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least-squares regression (PLSR) were used to study the data and construct calibration models for quantitative analysis. The concentration prediction errors for the packaged data were found to be very similar to those obtained in the unpackaged case, and were also on a par with reported values in the literature using higher-resolution angular-dispersive X-ray diffraction (ADXRD). Following this, soft independent modelling by class analogy (SIMCA) classification was used to compare EDXRD spectra from a test set of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines containing various combinations of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) against PCA models constructed using spectra collected for paracetamol and ibuprofen samples. The test samples were selected to emulate different levels of difficulty in authenticating medicines correctly, ranging from completely different APIs (easy) to those with a small quantity of additional API (difficult). This classification study found that the sensitivity and specificity were optimal at data acquisition times on the order of 75~150s, and regardless of whether layers of blister and card packaging surrounded the tablet in question. This experiment was repeated on a novel, compact system incorporating a pixellated detector, which was found to reduce the required data acquisition times for optimal classification by a factor of five

Balvia ecosystems product placement

Mestrado em IPB-ESTGTechnological advancement in medicine enabled humankind to surpass many difficulties and cure countless diseases. These solutions improve the quality of life and well-being for mankind. Non-adherence to prescribed medication is a problematic that decrease the overall quality of life and health, while increasing the costs of health care. It can have many reasons and the consequences can be dire. The project “Automatic pills dispenser device - SelfMed” aims to provide a solution for that problem. The project SelfMed envisions the creation of a machine that can store, organize and dispense medication in the proper quantity and time, alerting the user of the medicine and facilitating remote access to data. It is a smart and independent machine capable of communication with other systems, and with many security features. This work is in the scope of project SelfMed, further develops the pill dispenser prototype, creates a new scope for the solution, design the business base for the commercialization of the products. The solution being developed is an ecosystem that includes an automatic pill dispenser device, user interfaces, cloud system, a smartwatch application, and a service.O avanço tecnológico na medicina permitiu à humanidade superar muitas dificuldades e curar inúmeras doenças. Essas soluções melhoram a qualidade de vida e o bem-estar da humanidade. A não adesão às prescrições médicas é uma problemática que diminui a qualidade geral de vida e saúde, ao mesmo tempo que aumenta os custos dos cuidados de saúde. Pode ter muitas razões e as consequências podem ser terríveis. O projeto “Dispensador Automático de Comprimidos - SelfMed” visa fornecer uma solução para esse problema. O projeto SelfMed prevê a criação de uma máquina capaz de armazenar, organizar e dispensar medicamentos na quantidade e tempo adequados, alertando o utilizador sobre o medicamento e facilitando o acesso remoto aos dados. É uma máquina inteligente e independente capaz de se comunicar com outros sistemas e com muitos recursos de segurança. Este trabalho está no escopo do projeto SelfMed, desenvolve ainda mais o protótipo do dispensador de comprimidos, cria um novo âmbito para a solução, e desenha a base de negócios para a comercialização dos produtos. A solução que está a ser desenvolvida é um ecossistema que inclui um dispositivo, dispensador automático de comprimidos, interfaces de utilizador, sistema em nuvem, um aplicativo smartwatch e um serviço

Stimuli-Responsive Microtools for Biomedical and Defense Applications

We live in a 3D world which has embraced ever shrinking technologies, yet the techniques used to create these micro- and nanoscale technologies are inherently 2D. Self-assembly of 2D templates into 3D devices enables the creation of complex tools cheaply, efficiently, and in mass quantity. I utilize this technique to create stimuli-responsive microgrippers, which are shaped like hands with flexible joints and rigid phalanges and range in size from 10 µm to 4 mm. Intrinsic stress within the hinges provides all the energy necessary for gripping, and thus they require no wires or batteries for operation. Here, I demonstrate their use for both biomedical and defense applications. These microgrippers can be used as microsurgical tools, gripping onto tissue in response to body temperature and excising tissue from the gastrointestinal tract in both in vivo and ex vivo porcine models. A Monte Carlo model confirmed that these tiny tools has a higher probability of sampling tissue from a lesion as compared to the traditional biopsy foreceps. These grippers were scaled down to 10 µm and used to capture single cells for in vitro isolation, imaging, and assays. All-polymeric, porous, stimuli-responsive therapeutic grippers or “theragrippers” which swell and de-swell around body temperature were created for drug delivery applications. These theragrippers can be loaded with commercial drugs for biphasic, site-specific controlled release and were successfully demonstrated in an in vitro and an in vivo model. For defense applications, integrating microelectronics like RFID’s onto the microgrippers creates tagging, tracking, and locating (TTL) devices capable of latching onto clothing, hair, and moving animal targets. This integrated design is enabled using high throughput solder-based self-assembly. This defense application, particularly reliant on covert, wireless technology, benefits from our novel photothermal actuation mechanism using low power, handheld lasers. In addition to triggering microgripper closing, this actuation scheme also enables complex sequential folding pathways, a step towards programmable matter

Quantifying Quality of Life

Describes technological methods and tools for objective and quantitative assessment of QoL Appraises technology-enabled methods for incorporating QoL measurements in medicine Highlights the success factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods This open access book presents the rise of technology-enabled methods and tools for objective, quantitative assessment of Quality of Life (QoL), while following the WHOQOL model. It is an in-depth resource describing and examining state-of-the-art, minimally obtrusive, ubiquitous technologies. Highlighting the required factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods and tools for QoL assessment, it also describes how these technologies can be leveraged for behavior change, disease prevention, health management and long-term QoL enhancement in populations at large. Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine fills a gap in the field of QoL by providing assessment methods, techniques and tools. These assessments differ from the current methods that are now mostly infrequent, subjective, qualitative, memory-based, context-poor and sparse. Therefore, it is an ideal resource for physicians, physicians in training, software and hardware developers, computer scientists, data scientists, behavioural scientists, entrepreneurs, healthcare leaders and administrators who are seeking an up-to-date resource on this subject