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The Drug Enforcement Administration and government, community, public health and law enforcement partners announced a nationwide prescription drug “Take-Back” initiative that seeks to prevent increased pill abuse and theft. DEA will be collecting potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs for destruction at sites nationwide on Saturday, September 25 th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time. The…
Read MoreIn April 2010, the Cambodian Ministry of Health announced that the previous 5 months had seen the enforced closure of nearly 65% of the Illegal pharmacies operating in the country. The US Agency for International Development (USAID)-backed Promoting the Quality of Medicines Programme-which is active in 30 nations-had gathered evidence that these pharmacies were a significant source of counterfeit and…
Read MoreAn English technology company is working on a new, low-cost anti-counterfeiting technology to help combat the problem of fake medications. The company producing this new anti-counterfeiting technology will place a code on drug packaging that it hopes will be almost impossible to duplicate, according to Cambridge Business News. The new technology will place a two-dimensional dot matrix identifier…
Read MoreAbstract.
Objectives To investigate the state of health economic research in Russia available in the English language by describing the number and characteristics of the articles, and assessing the quality of these articles.
Methods The study assessed the state of health economics and pharmacoeconomics research in Russia. We conducted a literature search to identify health economics articles pertaining to Russia. Each article in the final sample was scored by two reviewers independently using the data-collection form designed for the study.
Key findings In total, 16 studies investigating a wide variety of diseases were included in the study. These articles were published in 15 different journals all based outside of Russia between 1994 and 2009. On average, each article was written by seven authors. Most first authors had medical/clinical training and resided in the USA (n = 8) at the time of publication of the study. Based on a scale of 1–10, with 10 indicating the highest quality, the mean quality score for all studies was 8.09 (SD = 1.29) and 25% of the articles were of fair quality (score 5–7). The quality of articles was statistically significantly related (P < 0.05) to the primary health intervention (pharmaceuticals > non-pharmaceuticals) and primary training of the first author (medical > non-medical).
Conclusions The conduct of health economics and pharmacoeconomics research in Russia in the English language is limited and, on average, the published articles were of good quality. However, about one-quarter of published articles were of fair quality. More health economics research in English is warranted in Russia.
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Background and objectives: For over a decade, many US politicians have advocated that the US allow personal and commercial drug importation. Currently, the only entities that can legally import a pharmaceutical in the US are pharmaceutical manufacturers. Our objective was to compare the number of prescriptions dispensed in Canada with the US and estimate the effect US drug importation from Canada will have on the Canadian drug supply.
Methods: A model was created to measure the potential effect on the Canadian drug supply. The model uses the number of US prescriptions being sourced from Canada and the number of prescriptions dispensed in Canada in 2007 as the baseline. The number of days to exhaust the 2007 Canadian drug supply was calculated.
Results: The model found that if 10% of the US prescriptions were fi lled from Canadian sources (manufacturer, wholesale or retail), Canada’s 2007 drug supply would be exhausted in 224 days. If the demand from the US reached 20%, the 2007 supply would be exhausted in 155 days. The model was redone focusing on brand name drugs, with generic drugs removed. It was found that with a US demand of 10% and 20%, the 2007 Canadian supply for brand name drugs would be exhausted in 268 and 201 days, respectively.
Conclusion: US drug importation is a threat to Canada’s drug supply. Even if the US demand were 10%, Canada would need to dramatically increase manufacturing, triple drug importation, or most likely control or halt pharmaceutical shipments to the US.
Read MoreAbstract. Background and objectives: For over a decade, many US politicians have advocated that the US allow personal and commercial drug importation. Currently, the only entities that can legally import a pharmaceutical in the US are pharmaceutical manufacturers. Our objective was to compare the number of prescriptions dispensed in Canada with the US and estimate the effect US drug importation from Canada will have on the Canadian drug supply.
Methods: A model was created to measure the potential effect on the Canadian drug supply. The model uses the number of US prescriptions being sourced from Canada and the number of prescriptions dispensed in Canada in 2007 as the baseline. The number of days to exhaust the 2007 Canadian drug supply was calculated.
Results: The model found that if 10% of the US prescriptions were filled from Canadian sources (manufacturer, wholesale or retail), Canada’s 2007 drug supply would be exhausted in 224 days. If the demand from the US reached 20%, the 2007 supply would be exhausted in 155 days. The model was redone focusing on brand name drugs, with generic drugs removed. It was found that with a US demand of 10% and 20%, the 2007 Canadian supply for brand name drugs would be exhausted in 268 and 201 days, respectively.
Conclusion: US drug importation is a threat to Canada’s drug supply. Even if the US demand were 10%, Canada would need to dramatically increase manufacturing, triple drug importation, or most likely control or halt pharmaceutical shipments to the US.
Read MoreWith the economic recession people have been looking for ways to save money and some have even resorted to visiting Mexican and Canadian pharmacies to buy prescription drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not recommend that people buy their drugs from Canadian pharmacies however, according to the Arizona Republic. Some Arizona residents have taken to crossing the border…
Read MoreInternational authorities recently seized nine tons of counterfeit drugs from a number of East African nations. According to Interpol, 80 people were also arrested on suspicion of illegal trafficking in the two-month long operation that took place in Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zanzibar, reports CNN. The seized drugs included anti-malaria medication, vaccines and antibiotics as well as quantity…
Read MoreThree men from Utah were recently sentenced to federal prison for their illegal online pharmacy operation. Noah Sifuentes, of Orem, Utah, and Timothy Shields and Kenneth E. Forrest, of Provo, Utah, had all previously pleaded guilty to an illegal online pharmacy business that sent prescription drugs from Mexico across the country, according to the Daily Herald. A news release from…
Read MoreThe director-general of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Dr. Paul Orhii recently urged his countrymen to become more self-sufficient in terms of its pharmaceutical production. Orhii said he believes that the dependence on foreign drug producers is a threat to national security and may lead to the amount of counterfeit drug in the country,…
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