E-drug: Sale of fake drugs to African countries: Exports threatened
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Reprinted under the fair use doctrine of international copyright law:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
[Submitted by James Love
love@cptech.org
http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
(inserted by BS)]
http://www.dawn.com/2001/02/08/nat1.htm
February 8, 2001
Sale of fake drugs to African countries: Exports threatened
By Sarfaraz Ahmed
KARACHI, Feb 7: First they did it to Microsoft. Now they are doing it to
national and multinational pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan.
Entrepreneurs in a major Asian country are duplicating pharma products
manufactured in Pakistan - with Urdu label and all - and selling it to
importers in African countries.
The export of these counterfeit products is posing a serious threat to
the marketing prospects of Pakistan's products.
Inquiries conducted by Dawn show that according to initial estimates not
only the Pakistan-based exporters of these items have lost a substantial
sale of medicines (approximately $20 million) since April last year when
the first counterfeit item was floated in African market, but the
country's image, too, will get a serious blow once one of these products
is found to be substandard.
The counterfeit products whose samples have so far been collected from
Western Africa are Lincocin capsules, Buscopan 10mg tablets, Erythrocin
250mg tablets, Moduretic tablets, Aldomet tablets, Periactin tablets,
Tramal capsules, Doloneurobion tablets, Novalgin tablets and Doxycycline
capsules.
The original items are produced by multinationals Hoechst, Upjohn, Merck
Sharpe and Dohme, Searle, AD Marker; and national pharmaceutical company
Tabros.
The markets to which these counterfeit products are being exported are:
Nigeria, Ghana, Cameron, Congo, Sierra Leon, Benin, Liberia, Niger and
Chad.
One of the major multinationals was told that a certain antibiotics
product it produced is currently being manufactured under its Pakistani
brand and package in that Asian country, and being shipped in large
volumes to Nigeria. Not only will this cause a drastic reduction of
sales volume from Pakistan of the original product, but it will also
seriously jeopardise its products and corporate image in Nigeria as
there is no guarantee of the standard/ efficacy of that Asian country.
As a result, the customers and the regulatory agencies in Nigeria will
lose total confidence in all the products manufactured by this
pharmaceutical company in Pakistan.
An investigation by Dawn revealed that all the pharmaceutical companies
concerned have the knowledge of this shady business and some of them
have got their products analysed through labs.
Interestingly, the pharma companies whose products are thus being
counterfeited, have conceded that after testing these drugs in their own
laboratories they have found the ingredients to be the right ones.
Meanwhile, none of these companies has so far approached the federal
health ministry in Islamabad or the government of that Asian country
with a complaint when they have been provided with the addresses of the
manufacturers producing counterfeit items.
Pharma industry insiders say the multinationals have kept their eyes
closed to this shady business because similar formulations manufactured
in the plants in Europe are selling at much higher prices in African
countries. If, per chance, a counterfeit drug, which is originally
manufactured in Pakistan, is found to be of inferior standard, the
result would be favourable to its high-priced European counterpart.
Hence they do not want to discourage the unethical practice.
The issue has come to the notice of the government, it was learnt.
However, the federal health ministry is not keen to conduct
investigation into the matter.
Inquiries show that reports of sale of counterfeit medicines have also
been received from India and Sri Lanka. The origin of these counterfeit
drugs, too, has been traced to the same country.
A Lagos-based Nigerian importer of Pakistani pharmaceutical products
recently interviewed in Karachi told Dawn that the market in Nigeria is
flooded with counterfeit products.
Interestingly, the packing of counterfeit items was superior to that of
original products and the fake items are quoted for half the price of
original ones, he told Dawn.
No case against the sellers of any counterfeit item was registered in
Nigeria as yet, he said. Neither has any item so far been proved to be
substandard, he added. However, he said, the manufacturers of the
original Pakistan products are likely to face serious problems if any of
the counterfeit items turned out to be substandard.
When a senior manager of a multinational company, one of whose products
was among those copied by entrepreneurs, was asked to comment, he said
his company has not received any complaint from any African or any other
country about their original products being copied in that Asian country
and marketed in Africa.
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