mPedigree ranked fifth most innovative company in Africa

mPedigree Network has been ranked the fifth most innovative company in Africa by Fast Company.

Fast Company in a list published on Tuesday described mPedigree as “one of the few anti-counterfeiting companies based in Africa" that has "expanded its technology to cover not just medicine, but agricultural products, makeup, textiles, and electric cables as well”.

It said mPedigree was profitable “in the millions of dollars globally."

“The company's authenticity labels have been placed on more than 500m drug packets as of September 2015. Clients include AstraZeneca, Roche, and Sanofi. Has offices in Egypt, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania,” it added.

mPedigree Network is a Ghana-based service that connects consumers to a product and manufacturer registry of the same name to help weed out counterfeit products in the African market.

The company sells special software to drugmakers that enables them to attach a label with a unique 12-digit code to products. Once the drug is purchased, customers can text the code to an mPedigree number and ensure that their drug is the real thing.

mPedigree is aimed at combating a huge problem in developing nations: finding authentic products.