Fake drugs warning from pharma
pharmafile | September 13, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | EFPIA, WHO, counterfeit, viagra
Pharma has warned that not enough is being done to protect consumers from counterfeit medicines – particularly those bought online as part of a burgeoning internet trade.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that one out of two medicines bought on the internet is a fake, and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has restated its desire for greater safeguards.
“We must ensure that patients in Europe receive their medicines from safe sources on a sustained basis,” said Richard Bergström, EFPIA director general.
“To do that, we need cross-border systems and processes that effectively eliminate forgeries from the pharmaceutical supply chain and track down criminal forgers,” he warned.
Bergström was speaking after it emerged that German customs authorities seized 1.4 million fake tablets, powders and vials in the first half of this year – a rise of 15% on the same period in 2012.
That comes after a haul of 9.8 million counterfeits was taken during INTERPOL’s global control programme in June, Operation Pangea VI, which went across 100 countries: more than 9,000 webpages with links to illegal mail order outfits were shut down and 58 people were arrested.
Research by the US’s National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has suggested that as few as 3% of websites selling prescription drugs are legitimate pharmacies, and up to half offer foreign or non-FDA-approved drugs.
This has led pharma in some cases to set up its own sales sites, such as the one Pfizer opened for Viagra earlier this year.
“Many patients are unaware of the extent of the health risk they expose themselves to as a consequence of ordering medicines from dubious internet sources,” said Martin Schulz, chairman of the Drug Safety Committee of the German Pharmacists’ Association (AMK).
“Life-threatening substances have been found in some counterfeit medicines,” he added.
Pharma manufacturers, pharmacists and wholesalers are setting great store by a new system which, from 2017, will allow pharmacies across Europe to check the authenticity of medicines before dispensing them to patients.
Germany is currently trialling the securPharm system, where each pack carries a unique two-dimensional data matrix code that can be used to track the source.
Adam Hill
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