Counterfeit drugs - bad things in "good" packages

Counterfeiting seems to be the theme for today. Just as I was posting the recent story about Philip Morris suing over counterfeit cigarettes I came across a very interesting speech on counterfeit drugs. It was given by Roger Bate, to the Harvard Medical School, Department of Population Medicine, Drug Policy Research Group.

Counterfeiting is, of course, a matter of great interest to everyone in the packaging biz. The package is at the very core of selling counterfeit goods — and so the crooks of the world are good at that aspect of the process. Preventing such efforts is a never-ending battle for brand owners.

And the struggle seems to be getting more intense as businesses and culture become more intensely far-flung and intertwined economically. Nowhere is this more apparent - and vital to combat - than in pharmaceuticals.

Here are a few rather interesting takeaways from Bate’s speech:

Not all fake drugs are completely “fake”
In many cases, fake drugs are pretty close to the real thing. They’re sometimes even made after-hours in legitimate labs. And the counterfeiters often want repeat business, adding a further incentive to get it right (sort of). But even so, such drugs are often unhygienic.

The safety and ethics of counterfeit drugs varies widely
There’s a wide range of different types of counterfeiting, ranging from passing talcum powder off as Cipro, all the way to perfect copies of the drug that are really more trademark violations than anything else. Also in this mix are drugs that have expired and should have been destroyed.

Lots of people do indeed die from fake drugs
But not necessarily from toxic ingredients, which might appear to be the biggest danger of counterfeit drugs. But instead, as many as hundreds of thousands of people — particularly in poor nations — die from treatable conditions when they’re given fake drugs with ineffective ingredients. Also, drugs with reduced amounts of active ingredients can accelerate the natural-selection process for microbes, fostering uber microbes that can wipe someone out.

Laws regarding counterfeit drugs vary enormously
And this makes it tough to combat the problem. For instance China and some other countries can’t prosecute a charge of counterfeiting unless there’s a demonstration of harm caused by the product(!)

Poverty helps counterfeiting flourish
But not for the reason you might think: Where there’s poverty, there’s often illiteracy. And when people can’t read, it’s considerably harder to evaluate the authenticity of a package.

Great insights — definitely worth taking a few minutes and reading the whole speech transcript.

 d!b

Thanks to JoAnn Hines aka The Packaging Diva via Twitter for this one.