Counterfeit Drugs: An Increasing Problem Requiring A Global Solution

According to Forbes, annual global sales of counterfeit drugs were estimated to have reached approximately $200 billion in 2011. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines counterfeit drugs as "a medicine which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source". The WHO estimates that one per cent of all medicines available in the developed world are likely to be counterfeit. This figure rises to 10 per cent globally, although in some developing countries they estimate one third of medicines are counterfeit. According to WHO, counterfeiting can apply to;

both branded and generic products products with the correct ingredients, wrong ingredients, without any active ingredients or with insufficient active ingredients products with fake packaging. Simply put, counterfeit drugs are copies or imitations of original drugs which are manufactured and marketed without authority or right, with а view to deceive or defraud.

The use of counterfeit drugs has caused a number of issues for healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry. Counterfeits often lack correct amounts of active ingredient exposing patients to less effective treatments and wasting healthcare funding. Cheap 'bulking agents' such as chalk, sugar and flour are used to replace active ingredients which can cause adverse reactions that prove fatal. In January 2013, over 100 patients lost their lives at the Pakistan Institute of Cardiology Hospital after being administered counterfeit anti-hypertensive medicines.

For the genuine manufacturer, the presence of counterfeit drugs can lead to reputational damage, litigation, accusations of fraud, and product withdrawals. In 2008, the US pharmaceutical manufacturer Baxter Healthcare faced numerous lawsuits on account of negligence, product liability and fraud due to issues surrounding heparin, the blooding thinning agent. Batches of the active ingredient imported from China were found to contain oversulfated chrondroitin sulfate, a compound that mimics heparin but is cheaper and easier to obtain. Contaminated heparin was found in a total of 12 countries and is believed to have resulted in over 200 deaths; 149 in the US and 68 elsewhere.

There is also evidence that for infectious diseases such as malaria, administration of sub-standard counterfeit drugs has promoted the parasites'...