Manufacturing, trade and distributions of the fake medicines and
instruments are of major concern to the "World Health Organization"
(WHO) and world's top ranked pharmaceutical companies. According to
their observations, about 10-30 percent of the drug market has been
captured by the fake drug manufacturers. The fake drug contains too
little or too much active major ingredients. The use of the fake drugs
is creating a major health risks in these countries. The genuine drug
manufacturers are losing their business for this type of criminal
activity. Big pharmaceutical companies were thinking about creating a
mechanism to dismantle the drug rackets and illegal cross border trading
of counterfeit drugs. Paris based international investigative agency
INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said:"With no country, no
drug, no medical product immune from counterfeiting, a global effort is
needed to combat this threat which puts the lives of millions of people
at risk every single day". In this scenario, world's 29 large
pharmaceutical companies have signed a landmark agreement with the
Interpol to combat the menace of fake drugs. Novartis, Roche, Bayer,
Abbott and Glaxo Smithline are some of the internationally renowned
pharmaceutical companies who have signed to participate in the program.
However, the local drug manufactures of India and other developed
countries have raised their concerns about the agreement. There is
genuine reason behind their concerns. In the past few years, original
genetic drugs from India and other countries have been confiscated at
the various airports of European countries labeling the genetic drug as
fake. The most interesting fact is that the confiscated drugs were
shipped out for another developing country. The Indian Government
spokesperson says that the seizure of high quality generic and the
off-patent drugs manufactured by the domestic companies of the
developing countries has become a regular practice in the European
counties. It cannot be allowed as this practice is seriously hindering
the access to the cheap drugs by the poor. The domestic pharmaceutical
companies of the developing countries raised objections to the
definition of fake drugs defined by WTO. They also alleged that the main
intention of the agreement is to ruin the domestic genetic drug
manufacturing companies. They pointed out that none of the 29
signatories manufacture the genetic drugs and they sell the branded
medicine at an unreasonable exorbitant price in the third world
countries. The main advantage of the genetic drug is that the price of
it is much lower than the branded drug. Therefore, the poor people can
afford it.
"World Health Organization" (WHO) recently defined the counterfeit drug
as "a medicine, which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with
respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both
branded and generic products and counterfeit products may include
products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients,
without active ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients or with
fake packaging.
In Jun 2012, India, Brazil and China jointly defended the rights of poor
to access the cheap genetic drugs at WTO. In the meeting of
trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights
(TRIPS), the representative of the developed countries argued that the
substandard ingredients of counterfeit drugs put the lives of the
patients at risks. On the other hand, the developing nations argued that
WHO is not a proper forum for the discussion of counterfeit drugs. They
said that the infringement of "intellectual property rights" (IPR) and
substandard products are completely different issues. If the domestic
manufacturers use the same formula and process for manufacturing genetic
drug, it will be dealt by the "TRIPS" agreement.
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