AlpVision, the world leader in invisible technologies for product authentication and counterfeit protection, has selected Chicago, Illinois, as the location for its North American regional office. The office opened on 13 September 2010, with the mission to better support the US and Canadian branches of AlpVision’s current customers and to acquire new clients. North America offers a large portfolio of prospects and the opportunity to replicate the Cryptoglyph® and Fingerprint™ success stories already well developed in Europe. In early 2011 this new regional office will be given the technical resources to become self-standing for North American operations.

The establishment of a US office is a logical step for AlpVision, given that all major US packaging printers have been supplying Cryptoglyph secured packaging for several years now.

The Chicago region has been selected because of its high density of branded product manufacturers as well as packaging printers and converters. This North American regional office is the first step in the development of an international presence that will see AlpVision established in other major markets in the future.

In the pharmaceutical industry alone, it is predicted that the related packaging market will reach the $34bn mark in 2011, with the North American region accounting for about 40%. In the light of the increased threat from medicine counterfeiting, it follows that in the foreseeable future appropriate authentication features will be applied on all genuine medicine. The aim of AlpVision is to establish the Cryptoglyph digital covert solution for product authentication as the de facto standard for large-volume production worldwide.

Cryptoglyph is a proven covert machine-readable security solution that can be applied to various packaging layers and components. The use of regular visible ink and standard printing equipment avoids alteration of the production process. Neither special security ink nor any security substances are needed. Standard consumer electronic equipment such as office flatbed scanners are used to carry out ‘genuine or fake’ verification anytime, anywhere.