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Counterfeit goods threaten security, economic growth and public safety worldwide, U.S. and private industry officials warn. Of increasing concern, they say, is the flood of counterfeit medicines into the marketplace. Trade in counterfeit and fake goods, officially referred to as intellectual property piracy, "negatively impacts our society through the loss of profits, jobs, revenue and posses risks to the community…
Read MoreA fake medicine racket has been busted in Howrah, with the arrest of the 48-year-old kingpin, Mahesh Kumar Rathi, and seizure of fake medicines worth around Rs 7 lakh. Rathi was picked up on Wednesday night following raids on his house at 197 Ramkrishnapur Lane and two drug outlets, on GT Road (in Shibpur) and Banbehari Bose Road (in the…
Read MoreIn February 2005, a 23-year-old Burmese man checked into a rural hospital in East Burma with a fairly ordinary case of malaria. The hospital gave him the usual treatment — artesunate pills, a medicine heralded as a miracle cure for its speed in treating the disease. Three days later, he slipped into a coma. Within 12 hours, the man was…
Read MoreThe National Bureau of Investigation yesterday warned the public on the proliferation of counterfeit medicines in the local market following the seizure of fake Viagra and Norvasc from several drugstores in Metro Manila, Southern Luzon and Northern Luzon in separate operations. Viagra and Norvasc are both Pfizer prescription drugs. NBI Intellectual Property Rights Division Chief lawyer Jose Yap said the…
Read MoreThe manufacture and distribution of counterfeit medicines is big business. Counterfeits threaten the health and safety of patients around the world, who depend upon authentic medicines prescribed by their doctors to save or improve the quality of their lives. The sale of counterfeit medicines not only funds criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations, but also undermines the ability of research-based pharmaceutical…
Read MorePharmaceutical crime is a tremendously challenging and growing facet of international trade. In an effort to understand the scope and nature of the problem, cooperative strategies through the Pharmaceutical Security Institute have been instituted. PSI utilizes a broad range of skills and approaches to detect and provide information on this critical issue for public and private stakeholder use against the…
Read MoreFor years, the nation's medicine has moved through a thriving gray market of middlemen, who buy and sell medicine to one another. These middlemen often resort to fraud in order to obtain medicine for resale more cheaply through drug diversion. Soaring prices, weak laws and numerous opportunities for arbitrage have attracted narcotics traffickers and organized crime into this activity. With…
Read MoreThe U.S. Customs Service and its successor agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is now located within the Department of Homeland Security, have conducted investigations into the illegal importation of unapproved and counterfeit pharmaceuticals for decades. Other federal and state agencies have conducted similar investigations. Advances in technology have created an increasingly favorable climate for such crime. In…
Read MoreAs American consumers seek their medicines at the best price, many are buying online, from foreign-based websites. Many of these websites purport to be based in Canada and some legitimate Canadian websites source their drugs from Great Britain or Ireland-believing that these drugs come from a country with a secure supply chain. This is, at best, misleading and this article…
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