After Pharma, Malaysia Moves Towards Hologram Protection for Medical Devices

Malaysia is preparing to extend its use of hologram-based security labels from pharmaceutical products to medical devices, creating an additional layer of protection against counterfeit, unregistered and substandard products.

The Hologram Security Label (HSL) intended for registered medical devices is based on its long-standing experience in pharmaceutical authentication. Malaysia's Ministry of Health launched Meditag™ between 2004 and 2005, making it one of the first countries to establish a national medicine authentication programme.

The scheme was later rebranded as FarmaTag in 2019, this time combining holographic security features with digital technologies in order to improve authentication and traceability.

FarmaTag combines technologies such as holograms, colour-shifting effects, serial numbers, and QR codes. The use of this multi-layered method makes it more difficult to copy, while also giving consumers and authorities additional ways to verify the label. It is now required that the security label be used on registered pharmaceutical products, traditional products, and health supplements, with certain exemptions specified.