| Malena Zubcov at Aegate addresses the growing problem of counterfeit drugs, and the best available solutions
Counterfeit and fraudulently supplied medicines (stolen or illegally-imported items) continue to be a significant and growing global problem, with governments, the pharmaceutical industry and regulators increasingly seeing the issue as a clear priority which needs urgent resolution. Recent cases support this threat – in June 2007, three cases of counterfeit drugs were found in the UK; Zyprexa, Casodex and Plavix were all identified as counterfeit medicines within only two weeks of each other.
Official statistics support this growing trend. In 2006 alone the number of fake medicines discovered was up to 2.5 million, with analysts reporting total sales of counterfeit prescription medicines will reach $75 billion by the end of the decade. If these forecasts are accurate then by 2010 almost 50 per cent of the drug supply will in some countries be made up of counterfeit drugs. This is mostly the case in developing countries, but recent news suggests that the volume of cases in Europe is escalating, as recently reported by the Council of Europe.
Current security devices intended to protect the patient, such as holograms or colour change inks, are easy and quick to copy. They are also hard for pharmacists to check manually and reliably, partly because some devices need to be covert and therefore cannot be subject to a visual check. These techniques are useful for confirming a counterfeit product has been identified, but do not prevent them from reaching patients in the first place.
The pharmaceutical supply chain is complex and provides numerous opportunities for the unscrupulous to interfere with drugs. In today’s Europe, with EU legislation encouraging the free movement of goods coupled with price differentials between countries, trading in pharmaceuticals is widespread and lucrative. |
