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The amount of counterfeit drugs arriving in Switzerland increased 75 percent in the first half of the year, according to health officials. The Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) said that it had received 992 reports of suspicious, potentially counterfeit drug imports from Federal Customs officials through the first half of 2010, according to SwissInfo.ch. That number represents a 75…
Read MoreResearchers for an internet security company are warning consumers about a new email spam campaign that is sending users to an ostensibly online Canadian pharmacy. Avira, a German antivirus company, says that the campaign sends spam to email accounts that are similar to those associated with phishing attacks, Softpedia.com. “In the recent past we saw emails looking like phishing mails,…
Read MoreSouth Korea estimates the quantity of counterfeit erectile dysfunction (ED) medication smuggled into the country is 23 times greater than five years ago, according to the Korea Herald. The National Tax Service (NTS) has detected 18 cases of smuggled impotence medicine worth 90.6 billion won ($77 million) in total for the first six months of 2010, and is expected to…
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Read MoreResearchers 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…
Read MoreChina released the names of thirty-three counterfeit medications on the loose. The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) disclosed on August 17 that thirty-three counterfeit medicines are circulating in the country and urged local and regional governments to vigilantly monitor local pharmacies and medical institutions for counterfeit copies of trademarked medications. Tongrentang (TRT), a prestigious pharmacy in Beijing, found two…
Read MoreThe Lewiston, Maine Sun Journal reported on August 17th, 2010 that twenty individuals from around the country were indicted by a grand jury for selling and possessing illegal and counterfeit drugs at the Nateva Music and Camping Festival last month. The four-day Nateva Festival, the first event in what is anticipated to be an annual series, took place at the…
Read MoreAgenzia Fides, the missionary press agency of the Vatican, has spoken out against counterfeit drugs and the approximated 700,000 people expected to die annually due to their pervasiveness. Fake tuberculosis and malaria drugs alone are estimated to kill 700,000 people a year. A large part of these victims are African. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 30…
Read MoreA new ‘track and trace’ technology is being developed to uniquely mark pharmaceutical products and improve traceability. The technique will allow faster identification and resolution of any manufacturing quality problems but will also prove invaluable as an anti-counterfeit measure because the specific coding and validation systems are almost impossible to copy. This technology will enable manufacturers to mark…
Read MorePolice in India recently arrested a man in possession of counterfeit drugs. Dharmender Singh was arrested at the Kidwai Nagar bus stand for allegedly dealing in counterfeit drugs, according to the Asian Age. The police say that Singh had a number of drugs that were marked with counterfeit labels of two famous pharmaceutical companies. According to the police, Singh said…
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