China's counterfeit or substandard medicines

China's counterfeit or substandard medicines

During first six months in 2005, more than 250kg of sildenafil citrate, Viagra’s active ingredient, were exported from India to Europe. Out of one kilogram sildenafil citrate, approximately 14,000 tablets of counterfeit Viagra-pills can be produced. If sold at normal market price of genuine Viagra a profit of up to 2,000% could result.

Photo Above: Real and fake drugs, side by side. Which would you take?

 

 

China

In China, between 200,000 and 300,000 people are estimated to die each year because of counterfeit or substandard medicines. The current baby formula incidents are a sad reminder of the human pain and suffering.

China has 80,000 chemical companies, and the FDA does not know how many sell ingredients used in drugs consumed by Americans. China exports “drug ingredients” to customers in 150 countries.

China’s State Food and Drug Administration is not responsible for regulating pharmaceutical ingredients manufactured and exported by chemical companies.
Corruption and lack of protection for whistleblowers undermines China’s attempt to establish a more rigorous drug regulatory system.

In 2007, a series of scandals involving counterfeit pharmaceutical exports led to intense international pressure on the Chinese government. This resulted in conviction and subsequent sentencing to death of the country’s two top drug regulators for accepting bribes.
Some counterfeiters have the same equipment used by pharmaceutical companies.
Cases have occurred of pharmaceutical laboratories that manufacture genuine drugs during business hours and produce counterfeits at night.
Counterfeiters have set up companies that provide service of disposing of expired medicines, thus they obtain real expired medicines that they repack and re-label.

ATL Security Note. Repackaging and relabeling (as described above) could be detected if an invisible forensic code was used in security packaging for the pharmaceuticals. If this covert technique was used, the break in the pedigree could be discovered before the consumer is harmed.