This tech is using AI to eliminate counterfeit prescription drugs

When Adebayo Alonge and Amy Kao launched RxAll in 2016, the Yale business school classmates were focused on helping reduce counterfeit medications in the supply chain of African countries. RxAll’s flagship RxScanner uses AI and light spectroscopy to spot counterfeit pills, helping pharmacies and regulators improve safety. As the scanner picked up adoption, Kao and Alonge identified additional ways to secure supply chains. 

Those now include everything from drug procurement—helping to connect pharmacies and hospitals with companies whose products routinely test as high quality—to demand prediction via a point-of-sale platform, and even financing for independent pharmacies to ensure they can maintain product supplies. 

Alonge says that 95% of African pharmacies are independently owned and still operate with handwritten records. “The friction really is around understanding what products are low quality, understanding what products are in demand, and getting access to the financing to purchase [quality] products and put them on the shelf,” he says, noting that RxAll uses a pharmacy’s POS data—and aggregated data across regions—to help predict demand. 

In the past year, RxAll has seen its network of pharmacies more than double, reaching 5,000-plus locations, largely in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. Meanwhile, the RxScanner has helped remove 1.3 million counterfeit medications from the supply chain. 

RxAll is also working with regulators and governments to identify bogus pharmaceuticals and even plan public outreach around illnesses based on what medication is in demand. Last year, the company forged five partnerships with government agencies, including Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control. The goal, Kao says, is to “enable these public partners to take a more proactive approach” and address counterfeiting and drug safety before tainted products get to patients. “Ideally, we work ourselves out of a job,” she says. 

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