China Launches New Product Piracy Crackdown

According to Bloomberg News and the Associated Press, China's government is launching a new six-month crackdown on rampant copying and counterfeiting of software, medicines and other goods.

According to the reported announcement:

• The announcement comes amid complaints by industry groups that piracy of software and some other goods is growing despite repeated government pledges to stamp it out.

• Cabinet officials said the crackdown will target a wide array of products from illegally copied computer software to corn that is falsely labeled as organic.

• Fake or illegally copied music, designer clothes, medicines and other goods are widely available in China. Industry groups say Chinese piracy costs legitimate producers billions of dollars a year in lost sales.

China leads the way in fraudulent, adulterated, sub-standard and counterfeit medications that is exported to the developed and underdeveloped nation’s pharmaceutical supply chains.

Hopefully this announcement is a serious effort on behalf of the Chinese government to protect consumers around the globe from this potentially lethal crime.

To read the entire Bloomberg News story, visit: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-30/china-launches-new-product-piracy-crackdown.html

To learn more about pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting solutions, visit: http://www.xstreamsystems.net/.

AP: Chinese Drug Regulator Fired For Suspected Violations

The Associated Press is reporting that Zhang Jingli, the "deputy head of China's food and drug regulator, is being investigated and has been dismissed from his post, a state news agency said Sunday, citing an anti-corruption agency."

Xinhua, a state news agency, "cited the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, an anti-corruption body, in a brief report that offered no details on what the suspected violations were."

Highlights of the Associated Press story include:

· The move comes three years after the former chief of the drug agency was executed after a bribe-taking scandal in which several deaths were blamed on medicines the agency approved.

· Zhang Jingli, deputy director of the State Food and Drug Administration is under investigation for suspected "serious disciplinary violations," the official Xinhua News Agency said. The term is a standard party reference for graft and abuse of power.

· In 2007, Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the drug and food watchdog was executed after he was convicted of taking bribes to approve flawed medicine blamed for several deaths.

· Zheng was sentenced to death for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines.

· China said in April it would step up monitoring of a faulty rabies vaccine that was recalled last year but could have still been on the market. It was the latest in a series of quality problems in China in recent years, including tainted infant formula and other milk products that sickened children.

· China's pharmaceutical industry is lucrative but often poorly regulated. Local manufacturers and other players along the drug supply chain have been blamed in recent years for deaths linked to counterfeit or shoddy medications at home and abroad.

To read the entire Associated Press story: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHqNTMIPOepIIcWUsEuBqru23vrAD9GA86VG0

Given all of the issues with fraudulent, adulterated and counterfeit medications that have emanated from China internal regulatory scrutiny seems a very wise course of action.

Secure Pharma Chain Blog endorses all within the pharmaceutical supply chain to protect their receivables and inventories by deploying authentication technologies which allow for their validation within their unit-of-sale container.

To learn more about pharmaceutical authentication technologies, visit: http://www.xstreamsystems.net/.

KV to Shut Down Ethex

According to published reports from Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and the St. Louis Post Dispatch, KV Pharmaceuticals has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding an investigation into Ethex Corp, its generic pharmaceutical marketing and distribution subsidiary.

KV Pharmaceutical must pay $27.6 million in fines and an administrative forfeiture to cover costs of the investigation. Additionally KV plans on ceasing operation of its Ethex generic drug business.

This agreement comes after Ethex plead guilty to criminal charges for not disclosing issues with two to its drugs.

The agreement with the U.S. Attorney and the Department of Justice is subject to court approval and revolves around the 2008 investigation into Ethex which halted production and recalled drugs after making oversized tablets.

Specifically Ethex plans to plead guilty to two felony counts of failure in 2008 to file field alerts for the generic drugs Dextroamphetamine and Propafenone.

These incidents of substandard medications were significant and could have adversely affected the health of many consumers. Had material screening been in place within the supply chain, these substandard materials would have been intercepted prior to them reaching a dispenser and ultimately the consumer.

To learn more about material screening solutions within the pharmaceutical supply chain, visit: http://www.xstreamsystems.net/.