India's Fake Drugs Are a Real Problem

India’s Food and Drug Administration recently conducted a series of raids to combat counterfeit drugs. Large amounts of counterfeits were seized in these raids and several individuals were arrested.

Roger Bate, a leading authority on counterfeit drugs recently wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal on these raids and the prevalence of counterfeit drugs in this region.

Below are some of the highlighted statistics cited in the article:

• In 2009, Bate examined five essential medicines in 52 different pharmacies in Delhi and Chennai. In Dehli, 12% of the pills were substandard, as were 5% in Chennai. About 2% of the pills contained no active ingredient.


• In a more recent investigation of Delhi’s wholesalers, they discovered that 7% of all tested samples were substandard and 3.6% were likely counterfeit.


• Last year alone, counterfeit drugs were seized by authorities in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur and many other Indian cities.


• In 2008, about half of the medical products that were confiscated by European Union customs officials originated in India.


• Estimates of substandard drugs reach as high as 30% of all medicines sold in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. But the truth is we don't really how bad the problem has become.


• The public-health consequences of the counterfeit drug trade are serious. These products, often adulterated with road paint and chalk, look identical to the antibiotics they pretend to be.


• Thousands of people probably die every year either because they're poisoned by bad ingredients in counterfeits or because the counterfeit doesn't treat the victim's malady.

In the article, Bate discusses the huge profits to be made and the necessity for stricter enforcement and how new technology can be used to combat this deadly menace.

XStream Systems has an anti-counterfeiting solution that allows wholesalers to molecularly verify the quality and authenticity of their inventory. In a world where what you see is not always what you get, our penetrating technology authenticates the medication and not just its packaging.

To learn more about XSteam Systems Solution visit: www.xstreamsystems.net.

For the full article visit: www.wsj.com.