Today the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation (WHO) discussed the issue of substandard/spurious/falsely labelled/falsified/counterfeit (SSFFC) medical products. Counterfeit medicines threaten health systems worldwide. Many countries stressed the need for enhanced regulatory capacity to be achieved, in particular, by fostering regulatory convergence. During her opening address on Monday 20 Read more…
Today the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launches a campaign to raise public awareness about the dangers of counterfeit products. “Counterfeit: Don’t buy into organized crime” shines a light on the illicit trade that manufactures and distributes counterfeit goods and the widespread health, social and ethical consequences Read more…
The Japanese government will step up efforts to fight fake medicines entering the country via foreign websites in 2014. The country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has been alerted to an increasing number of websites selling fake medication claiming to be based within Japan but operating oversees. The Ministry Read more…
Fight the Fakes Partner USP has announced their continued partnership with USAID, Promoting Quality Medicines (PQM), through September 2019. The PQM programme provides technical assistance to countries without national regulation of medicines to combat the availability of counterfeit drugs. This initiative promotes the introduction of new technologies, such as Pharmacheck, Read more…
I am an endocrinologist. This is a story reflecting the human suffering caused by illegal erectile dysfunction pills (“ED pills”). The young man lies there on the hospital bed. His vital signs are normal, he is still sleeping and has a feeding tube coming out from his nose. I Read more…
The government of Finland is stepping up action to prevent counterfeit medicines from entering the country’s drug supply chain. When importing into Finland from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), the amended Finnish Medicines Act requires ingredients intended to be used in medicines to hold a written authority statement stipulating Read more…
PharmaCheck, a cutting-edge, inexpensive, portable tool capable of detecting poor quality medicines, has been selected by Scientific American as one of the science magazine’s “World Changing Ideas of 2013 — Ten ways science may jazz up our gadgets, help to solve our most intractable problems and save lives.” In collaboration Read more…
President Barack Obama has signed into effect the Drug Quality and Security Act to protect the US public from fake and contaminated medicines. This law will make it easier to trace drugs through the US supply chain and contains anti-counterfeiting drug provisions. Pew Charitable Trust reports that the Act has Read more…
Stakeholders at a seminar organised by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and Helpline Trust have called for the establishment of a regulatory authority to combat the country’s problem of fake medicines. Health professionals and policy influences warned that a lack of action against counterfeit medicines was tarnishing the credibility of Read more…
Inspector General of the Global Fund has appointed Katie Hodson as the new Director of Investigations starting from January 2014. Ms. Hodson has 20 years of experience in conducting and supervising investigations including cases of counterfeiting. To learn more read the Global Fund’s news release here.