NEW DELHI: When private investigator Pankaj Dutt and police raided a place run by a fake drug syndicate in Patna, a city in eastern India, in July, he and his team found 84 boxes of a fake fertility drug, wrappers, cartons, chemicals and unlabelled ampoules.

The syndicate was making the drugs, placing them in boxes Indistinguishable from the original, and selling them at less than half the price. What was impressive was how these packages looked just like the real thing.

Pharma IQ has just published the results of its Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting Survey, conducted in October 2011 among 1,000 pharma anti-counterfeiting specialists.

61.5% respondents found that the threat of counterfeit medicines in the next year was more severe than ever and 53.8% admitted that they were planning to increase their budget for investment in the anti-counterfeiting area.

Increasing number of sick small scale pharma units, fragmented drug control department, lack co-ordination between various agencies, growing number of outlets in the pharmacy retail segment, sale of drugs through internet by unauthorized/illegal web sites, are factors which contribute to the presence of spurious and counterfeit drugs in India, according to Kaushik Desai, chairman, Industrial Pharmacy Division, Indian Pharmaceutical Association.

Medical products are important to ensure that those who need them would be properly helped. Unfortunately, there are people who manufacture counterfeit medical products, whether medical devices or medicines, and sometimes sell it at lower prices.

While the U.S. drug supply supply is still the safest in the world, ASHP advises consumers to be particularly vigilant about their medications given the recent rise in counterfeiting. ASHP recommends that consumers follow a few simple safety tips when taking medication:

spuriousclippings: global news round-up Phil Taylor 13-Nov-2010 SecuringPharma.com's round-up of pharmaceutical supply chain security news from the world's press features reports from India, Pakistan, Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana.

Drug industry should do more to tackle counterfeiting: IHMA Phil Taylor 04-Nov-2010 The trade body representing the holographic industry says the results of a recent survey by Pfizer and the International Pharmaceutical