Counterfeit medications are becoming a huge problem for many aspects of the pharmaceutical community from big pharma companies, through to wholesalers and down to end user level where patients are affected. The FDA estimates that 10% of the global market is counterfeit however there is no accurate way to measure this. WHO describes counterfeit medications as:
"...one that is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled 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, the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient quantity of active ingredient or with fake packaging."

These counterfeit medicines appeal to patients in this economic climate because they are cheap and easily available online. This is generating problems for Big Pharma companies as they may have a liability role if these counterfeit medicines are not removed from the market. It affects their brand integrity and costs companies millions in research and development of anti-counterfeiting technologies. It creates losses in revenue for these companies and also governing bodies via tax revenue.

Medicines targeted by counterfeiters usually have high sales with low production costs and make it relatively easy for counterfeiters to distribute these medications in the supply chain. Medications with the capability to have high internet sales are attractive because online transactions provide low accountability to those involved in the counterfeiting trail. WHO estimate 50% of medicines available from sites which conceal their physical address are counterfeit.

Key Speakers - Pfizer - European Association of Pharmaceutical Full-Line Wholesalers (GIRP) - Delfarma - FDASmart - Toxin Science - Authenticate Limited - Pharmaterials - Kingston University - GS1