The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines counterfeit medicines as those that have been "deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled according to identity or source'"1. Such illegitimate drugs can have defects in their active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), excipients or coating, or their packaging might have been tampered with. The harm resulting from them is unpredictable and can range from treatment ineffectiveness to drug resistance and even death. Additionally, drug counterfeiting is not limited to a class or formulation type and can be encountered anywhere in the wholesale supply chain. In this respect, rapid and mobile techniques that can authenticate medicines where they are encountered are favourable