Did you know that all medicine dispensed by pharmacists today has a tracking serial number and that this system is protecting you every day?

Recently a ring of counterfeiters was exposed selling fake HIV medicines. One of their shipments ended up in Texas at a small independent pharmacy.

A wholesaler the pharmacist had never heard of offered him this HIV treatment for cheaper than he was getting it from his main wholesaler. So he ordered some.

The pharmacist received the medication, the bill, and something new because of America’s medicine tracing system: a transaction log showing every company that had bought and sold the medication since it left the factory floor at Gilead.

He looked at it and got suspicious. The medicine had passed through the hands of wholesaler AmerisourceBergen. That was his wholesaler, but it was cheaper from this new source.

Apparently, he wasn’t getting the best price after all.

The pharmacist sent the bill and the sales log to the wholesaler, to Amerisource Bergen, and even to Gilead.

Because the new traceability system relies mostly on electronic records, Amerisource Bergen was able to get back to him quickly and told him the sales log was entirely fake.

The pharmacist quickly isolated the suspect product so it wouldn’t be dispensed to patients and received a refund from the suspect wholesaler.

The law that created this system was passed in 2013 and the entire industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars implementing it over the last nine years. At the end of next year, they’re done.

But even before that, the system is protecting patients just like you and me.

If you’re a pharmacist, come to our website where we’re developing resources to educate you about track and trace and how you can better sniff out suspicious offers. Visit us at safemedicines.org/pharmacists