Sarmayacar, a syndicate of foreign investors to promote Pakistani startups has announced $250,000 Seed funding for ProCheck, a leading serialization and patient engagement services provider, also joined by Pakathon/Elastica.

ProCheck’s round of funding will be used to expand its sales and engineering team to capitalize on the surge of interest from the pharmaceutical industry in particular, and will enable it to establish a sales and service presence in manufacturing hubs outside Karachi, where it is headquartered. As part of the financing, Rabeel Warraich from Sarmayacar has joined ProCheck’s Board of Directors.

“By offering the full stack of track and trace capabilities, SMS and app based verification services, coupled with a strong focus on analytics and patient engagement, ProCheck has established itself as the provider of choice for the pharmaceutical industry,” said Rabeel Warraich, Founder, Sarmayacar.

“ProCheck’s product partnerships mean they can provide a highly scalable, proven, suite of services to help manufacturers comply with government mandates for Punjab tenders and DRAP. “he added. “We are thrilled to partner with the ProCheck team to help accelerate their growth and help them make counterfeiting unprofitable by protecting the supply chain.”

“We’re focused on our mission of enabling patient access to authentic and affordable drugs, by protecting the supply chain and empowering the purchaser,” said Saim Siddiqui, Founder and CEO of ProCheck. “With this round and involvement from a syndicate with deep expertise in healthcare, we’re well positioned to cement our substantial lead in the pharma verticaland solidify our reputation as the trusted provider of serialization and brand protection services.

There has been a push in the last few years to protect patients from the scourge of counterfeit medicines, with regulatory bodies across the globe mandating manufacturers to adopt systems using serialization. This involves printing unique codes on each pack, which can be used by patients and regulators alike to confirm that the drug purchased is genuine. By 2019, it is expected that 75% of the world’s pharmaceutical supply chain will be covered under various regulatory mandates. The United States, EU, China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Turkey have introduced serialization/track and trace mandates.

In Pakistan, both the Punjab Government and DRAP have finalized drafts to make serialization mandatory for pharmaceutical products over the coming years. Manufacturers are gearing up for a July 1 deadline by the Punjab government to serialize all products procured via tender.