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India becomes a hub for fake medicines

S_O_C_O_M

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India becomes a hub for fake medicines

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"When we bust one operation, two more spring up elsewhere," says private investigator Suresh Sati, sitting. Pankaj Dutt works with Sati. (Rama Lakshmi)

IN NEW DELHI Private investigator Suresh Sati rattled off the popular brand names listed on the boxes of cough syrup, supplements, vitamins and painkillers sprawled across the desk and shelves in his basement office.

"They look real, but all these are fakes," said Sati, head of a New Delhi-based agency that helps police conduct raids against counterfeit-drug syndicates across the country. "A regular customer cannot make out if a drug is fake. . . . The biggest giveaway is when someone is selling medicines very cheap. It is almost always fake."

India, the world's largest manufacturer of generic drugs, has become a busy center for counterfeit and substandard medicines. Stuffed in slick packaging and often labeled with the names of such legitimate companies as GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Novartis, the fake drugs are passed off to Indian consumers and sold in developing nations around the world.

Experts say the global fake-drug industry, worth about $90 billion, causes the deaths of almost 1 million people a year and is contributing to a rise in drug resistance.

Estimates vary on the number of these drugs made in India. The Indian government says that 0.4 percent of the country's drugs are counterfeit and that substandard drugs account for about 8 percent. But independent estimates range from 12 to 25 percent.

Indian officials say the clandestine industry has hurt the image of India's booming pharmaceutical industry and its exports, worth $8.5 billion a year, mostly to African and Latin American countries.

To clamp down on the illegal trade, the health ministry launched a reward program this year offering $55,000 to those who provide information about fake-drug syndicates.

Last year, the ministry also strengthened its drug law to speed up court trials. Suspects found guilty of manufacturing and selling fake drugs can be sentenced to life in prison.

The number of people arrested for manufacturing and selling fake drugs rose from 12 in 2006 to 147 last year, and drugs worth about $6.5 million were seized over this period.

"It is very difficult to dismantle the entire operation," Sati said. "When we bust one operation, two more spring up elsewhere. Convictions are rare."

The tricks of the trade include sticking fraudulent labels on expired products, filling vials with water, stuffing small amounts of real ingredients in packages of popular licensed brands and putting chalk power in medicine packets.

But more than the concern for public safety, officials here have been particularly alarmed about recent incidents that discredit India's image abroad.

In June, officials at Nigeria's Abuja airport caught a shipment of fake antibiotics, containing no active ingredients, with a "Made in India" label.

Nigerian investigators later said that a Chinese company shipped the drugs via Frankfurt. In a similar incident last year, a shipment of fake anti-malaria drugs from China arrived in Nigeria with an Indian tag.

Last year, Sri Lanka banned imports from four Indian companies after officials discovered substandard medicine in shipments.

Over the years, drug companies have used holograms or embossed their logo on the packaging to protect their brands, but these have also been counterfeited in India.

One company, MSN Labs, is using a technology developed by U.S.-based start-up firm PharmaSecure that allows consumers to check the authenticity of medicines by sending in a text message of the code written on them.

But many Indian companies are "apprehensive of pursuing the cases for fear of bad publicity and possible loss of confidence among consumers," said Barun Mitra, director of the New Delhi-based think tank Liberty Institute.

Co-writing a report on a recent survey, Mitra said that 12 percent of sampled drugs from the capital's pharmacies were substandard. "We are behaving like ostriches with our heads in the sand and pretending that nothing is amiss even as the problem keeps growing and affecting Indian patients."

On a recent morning in the northern city of Varanasi, a young man named Ashish waited for a shipment of painkillers and postpartum pills to arrive by train.

He said his order of pills that controlled postpartum bleeding contained chalk powder but came with the brand name Methergine in a Novartis package.

The painkiller had insufficient ingredients and carried a Bidanzen Forte label inside a knockoff GlaxoSmithKline package.

"There is a lot of profit in this," said Ashish, 28, describing the extent of counterfeit drugs in Varanasi. He declined to give his surname because his operation is illegal.

"I do not think about right or wrong," he said. "I am not killing anybody. The worst is that these medicines will not show any result and the patient may have to check into a hospital."

washingtonpost.com
 
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I am working in FDA INDIA. .i wont let it happen..till now i didnt find a single fake medicine through drug inspector samples. .majority of fraud must be undergroud racket 4 exports.
 
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My observation.
Actually theses are really not fake but generic medicines filtering into market after no checks and regulations. Most of the so called fake medicine industry is not making medicine totally different from what the very basic salt is mentioned on them. But these are local illegal factories making medicine without doing R&D but on already available salts and formulations. The medicine do not guarantee desired Pharmacokinetics not because they use a different technique to treat molecules but nobody knows how they make it. The user has to rely on the manufacturers honesty. Very illegal, very bad.
 
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Sure, in two years time, India turning around from the biggest "Fake drugs lord" in the world with a domination of over 70% to a model citizen claiming no fake drugs being found? even your times of India admitted 20% are for local Indians to consume.
Wonder who you trying to fool, the world or yourselves? at least be ashame of how many people got kill because of your fake drugs around the world. :sniper:
NEW DELHI - Two recent reports by international health organizations have highlighted the disquieting magnitude of the counterfeit drugs market in India.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reckons that 75% of the world's total supply of fake drugs can be traced to India. :what::tdown:

This is not the first time the Indian government has faced flak for its unchecked manufacture and circulation of spurious drugs. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has estimated that the annual rate of growth of the fake drugs market in India is 25% and worth US$34.9 billion. Typically, the Indian health ministry refutes this by saying that only some 8% of drugs in India are suspect. :undecided:

Even India government was trying to hide the truth cos the big profit produce by the fake drugs, what a paradise for fake drugs crooks.:whistle:
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
 
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Sure, in two years time, India turning around from the biggest "Fake drugs lord" in the world with a domination of over 70% to a model citizen claiming no fake drugs being found? even your times of India admitted 20% are for local Indians to consume.
Wonder who you trying to fool, the world or yourselves? at least be ashame of how many people got kill because of your fake drugs around the world. :sniper:
NEW DELHI - Two recent reports by international health organizations have highlighted the disquieting magnitude of the counterfeit drugs market in India.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reckons that 75% of the world's total supply of fake drugs can be traced to India. :what::tdown:

This is not the first time the Indian government has faced flak for its unchecked manufacture and circulation of spurious drugs. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has estimated that the annual rate of growth of the fake drugs market in India is 25% and worth US$34.9 billion. Typically, the Indian health ministry refutes this by saying that only some 8% of drugs in India are suspect. :undecided:

Even India government was trying to hide the truth cos the big profit produce by the fake drugs, what a paradise for fake drugs crooks.:whistle:
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

Dude, give it a break will ya. What is it up with you and your Indian obcession?
 
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Sure, in two years time, India turning around from the biggest "Fake drugs lord" in the world with a domination of over 70% to a model citizen claiming no fake drugs being found? even your times of India admitted 20% are for local Indians to consume.
Wonder who you trying to fool, the world or yourselves? at least be ashame of how many people got kill because of your fake drugs around the world. :sniper:
NEW DELHI - Two recent reports by international health organizations have highlighted the disquieting magnitude of the counterfeit drugs market in India.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reckons that 75% of the world's total supply of fake drugs can be traced to India. :what::tdown:

This is not the first time the Indian government has faced flak for its unchecked manufacture and circulation of spurious drugs. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has estimated that the annual rate of growth of the fake drugs market in India is 25% and worth US$34.9 billion. Typically, the Indian health ministry refutes this by saying that only some 8% of drugs in India are suspect. :undecided:

Even India government was trying to hide the truth cos the big profit produce by the fake drugs, what a paradise for fake drugs crooks.:whistle:
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
Indian took something from you.....Whats with this obsession.

I just googled your name and found this: Molawchai is slightly shorter, with roundish, babyish features. He favors sweets and cakes to the other's more adult tastes. ...
 
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Indian took something from you.....Whats with this obsession.

I just googled your name and found this: Molawchai is slightly shorter, with roundish, babyish features. He favors sweets and cakes to the other's more adult tastes. ...

Hmm, interesting, how does by revealing the truth that India is the biggest "Fake Drugs lord" in the world turn into a so-called obsession accusation? :undecided:
Btw, if you want to get personal, at least be honest to what you shown, otherwise your loser mentality will be fully exposed.:lol:
If going by your trick, by changing one letter of your name in thai, it will be something like this เกย์ ออนไลน์ :whistle:
 
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You know what molawchai? we Indians are so ingenious that we pass of fake medicines as 'genuine' to our poor and the world and yet we get away with it. In fact a few fools of foreign nationals even come to India nowadays to get their medical problems fixed and we fool them too and the interesting thing is that they go back home quite happy :tongue:

We are the true followers of Chanakya you see.
 
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it would be a good idea on part of PDF to open a seperate forum called 'anti-india' or 'india obsession' mostly for our friends like 's_o_c_o_m' & 'molawchai'. they can have a field day there.. looks like these guys are suffering from nightmare called 'india'.
 
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Originally Posted by StreetHawk
"it would be a good idea on part of PDF to open a seperate forum called 'anti-india' or 'india obsession' mostly for our friends like 's_o_c_o_m' & 'molawchai'. they can have a field day there.. looks like these guys are suffering from nightmare called 'india'. "


Hey Guys,
No need to work up a sweat. This seems to be some pathological thing, but no cause for worry.
One guy is sometimes COME and mostly GONE.
While the other is a big Storm in a very little cup of CHAI.
 
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If PDF webmaster somehow start showing ip address of person below his/her profile picture like the flag of the country i am sure many of these turks, sri lankans, bangladeshis, chinese, thai etc. will be traced in a particular place of the world and i guess we all know what place i am talking about.
 
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Nigerian investigators later said that a Chinese company shipped the drugs via Frankfurt. In a similar incident last year, a shipment of fake anti-malaria drugs from China arrived in Nigeria with an Indian tag.

Can resisit blaming CHina somewhere between the lines ehh!!

"I do not think about right or wrong," he said. "I am not killing anybody. The worst is that these medicines will not show any result and the patient may have to check into a hospital."

This is the height of insensivity. Atleast a terrorist knows he is going to kill you and shows no shame to admit that but fooling people in their health by fake medicines is worst.
 
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