FDA sees growing number of counterfeit drugs

NEW YORK According to The Lancet, the Food and Drug Administration saw an eight-fold increase in the number of new counterfeit prescription medications from 2000 until 2006.

What’s worse is that worldwide sales of counterfeit drugs are forecasted to reach $75 billion by 2010. This is, in part, due to weak regulatory systems in developing countries, where around 10 to 30 percent of drugs might be fake, according to the journal.

Counterfeiting may have caused the deaths of at least 81 patients in the U.S. after they were treated with a contaminated batch of heparin, a blood-thinning drug.

Last week the FDA told a congressional hearing it believed a dangerous contaminant found in batches of the heparin may have been deliberately added. The contaminant, traced back to a Chinese supplier, was structurally similar to heparin but 100 times cheaper.

The counterfeit drug trade was becoming more difficult to combat even before the tainted heparin was discovered, as criminals were using more sophisticated techniques to bypass standard laboratory tests. For instance, by adding cheaper substances that mimicked genuine drugs.

Substances used to taint medicines varied from chalk to antibiotics to highly lethal substances, said the editorial.