European Researchers Find Counterfeit Drugs Online

Researchers in Poland and Holland recently revealed that counterfeit varieties of the anti-obesity drug, Acomplia, are available over the internet.

Acomplia, generically known as rimonabant, was pulled from the market in 2008 but can still be obtained online, according to SecuringPharma.com.

The European researchers conducted testing of the counterfeit drugs and found that while many of the pills had effective levels of rimonabant, there were a number of other impurities including unapproved ingredients.

"Rimonabant was withdrawn from the market because of serious adverse events and lack of efficacy," the researchers wrote. "The availability of poor quality products with rimonabant, impurities and unapproved polymorphs is worrying."

The researchers tested five samples of the counterfeit drugs bought online with a technique known as liquid chromatography with diode array detection and mass spectrometry detection (LC-DAD-MS). They also tested the drugs with near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction.

These tests revealed that four of the five samples contained rimonabant. However, two of the samples had an unapproved analog to the drug, two contained unapproved polymorphs and one contained low levels of another drug used to fight obesity, sibutramine.

Acomplia was pulled from the market because it was shown to lead some into depression and suicidal thoughts.