NanoGuardian Partners With SDI to Deliver Closed-Loop Protection of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

SKOKIE, IL--(Marketwire - May 26, 2009) - NanoGuardian™, a division of NanoInk® that focuses on delivering brand protection solutions to fight illegal diversion and counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products, announced a partnership with SDI, a leader in innovative analytics for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, to deliver its Closed-Loop Protection™ market monitoring program. Closed-Loop Protection combines the on-dose authentication and tracing benefits of NanoGuardian's NanoEncryption™ technology with a proactive pharmacy auditing program to identify counterfeit or illegally-diverted pharmaceuticals entering the global supply chain.

NanoGuardian's NanoEncryption technology provides on-dose security features at the overt, covert and forensic level and can be applied directly to tablets, capsules and vial caps. These multi-layered security features enable NanoGuardian to provide a dual-protective benefit to manufacturers with a single technology. The overt and covert security features enable authentication at any point in the supply chain, while the forensic-level NanoCodes™ provide comprehensive tracing information on every single dose.

NanoGuardian's NanoCodes can be associated with an unlimited amount of data including, but not limited to product information (strength, expiration date), manufacturing information (location, date, batch and lot number), and distribution information (country, distributor, wholesaler, chain, RFID or 2-D Barcode). Since NanoGuardian's on-dose protection always remains with the specific dose even after numerous repackaging efforts, NanoGuardian provides brand integrity, protection and confidence that standard, on-package, e-pedigree technologies cannot alone provide.

NanoGuardian's Closed-Loop Protection is a market-monitoring program that works hand-in-hand with NanoEncryption technology to provide manufacturers an "Early Warning System" in the detection of counterfeit and diverted product. Through random audits at retail pharmacies, NanoGuardian's Closed-Loop Protection can proactively detect counterfeit and diverted product providing manufacturers with early detection of problems and mitigating risk to brands, companies and patients.

"To ensure the success of Closed-Loop Protection, it was vital to partner with an organization such as SDI, that has the regulatory experience in conducting proactive market monitoring services and that can manage networks of pharmacies and physicians," said Dean Hart, executive vice president, NanoGuardian. "With Closed-Loop Protection, we can proactively identify costly counterfeiting and illegal diversion activities as they occur, which allows more time for action and reduces the risk to pharmaceutical companies and patients."

"We are excited to partner with NanoGuardian in combining SDI's strong market research resources with NanoGuardian's on-dose NanoEncryption technology to better enable manufacturers to protect patients by ensuring supply chain integrity," said Andrew Kress, CEO, SDI.

According to the U.S.-based Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest (CMPI), counterfeit drug commerce is estimated to grow 13 percent annually through 2010. "That means counterfeit drug sales will grow at nearly twice the rate of legitimate pharmaceutical commerce," states Peter Pitts, President of CMPI. "In 2010, this illegal business will generate $75 billion in revenues -- a 92 percent increase from 2005."

About NanoGuardian

NanoGuardian™, a division of NanoInk®, focuses exclusively on delivering brand protection solutions to fight illegal diversion and counterfeiting. Anchored by NanoInk's novel NanoEncryption™ technology, NanoGuardian enables manufacturers to authenticate and trace the integrity of their products across the supply chain. More information about NanoGuardian is available at www.nanoguardian.net.

About SDI

Since 1982, SDI has been delivering innovative healthcare data products and analytic services to the pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, medical device, financial services, and consumer packaged goods industries. SDI is the leading provider of de-identified patient-level data analytics and offers a broad array of solutions and insights across the continuum of care. These include custom and syndicated patient-level data studies; localized disease and treatment surveillance and projection; market research audits; healthcare profiles; comprehensive managed care offerings; clinical trial optimization; direct-to-patient pharmacy programs; marketing effectiveness; sales targeting and compensation products; data integration, warehousing, and mining; list services; and direct marketing services. Its current roster includes the top 50 pharmaceutical/biotech companies. For more information, visit www.sdihealth.com or call (610) 834-0800.

Contact Information: Contacts: For NanoGuardian: Joshua Taustein Dresner Corporate Services 312-780-7219 jtaustein@dresnerco.com Sara DeNio Dresner Corporate Services 312-780-7223 sdenio@dresnerco.com For SDI: Tracy Everly (800) 982-5613 teverly@sdihealth.com