India's market in generic drugs also leads to counterfeiting

Pouya Rohani
September 17,2010
2:49 pm
The numbers of forged and substandard drugs that are made in India are about o.4 percent and eight percent, respectively, based on the data provided by Indian government. That is different from independent estimate, range from twelve to twenty five percent. This illegal drug industry has hurt the image of Indian pharmaceutical industry that is expanding in a fast pace in India and around the world. India’s pharmaceutical industry and drugs they export, mostly to Africa and Latin American countries, sell about 8.5 billion dollars in a year. These fake medications look real to the customers based on the packaging and labeling, often popular brands like Pfizer and Novartis. It is not just labeling that is fake. Vials filled with water and small amount of real ingredient are packaged as a real license drugs. The health ministry of India recently did multiple efforts to impose restriction on illegal trade. They started to reward about $55,000 to the people who offer information about the sell of fake drugs. They also tried to toughen their drug law and speed the process of jurisdiction like court trials. However, as Suresh Sati private investigator in new Dehli said, “is very difficult to dismantle the entire operation when we bust one operation, two more spring up elsewhere.”
I think the effort for preventing the selling and production of the fake drugs is good, but at the same time it is not sufficient. For example, a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry could not be protected by a few hundred thousand dollars. Obviously, it helps a little in the long term since most of the programs started recently. Based on the safety perspective, false drugs could put in danger the lives of so many people who really needs drugs on time, and could not afford to buy another when one single company made the drugs. Physicians also face real challenges in determining whether the drugs were ineffective to cure certain disease, or the drugs were simply fake.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091003435.html