Booming trade in counterfeit medicines

An article in the November 2010 issue of The Lancet

According to Paul Newton, who is part of the Wellcome Trust-Mahost Hospital-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration, “The main consequences (of counterfeit medicines)…are increased mortality and morbidity, endangering drug resistance and loss of medicine efficacy, loss of confidence in health systems and health workers, economic loss for patients, their families, health systems, and the producers and traders in good-quality medicines, adverse effects from incorrect active ingredients, a waste of enormous human efforts and financial outlay in the development and manufacture of medicines…”

Steve Allen, Senior Director of Pfizer Global Security, emphasised the importance of international collaboration among regulators, the pharmaceutical industry and political representatives, and thinks this strategy will have the best chances of tackling counterfeiting. “This is not just an issue for one company, it is not an issue for one country, it is an issue for all of us.”