Keeping it real: anticounterfeiting strategies in the pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Although pharmaceutical counterfeiting incidents can be traced back thousands of years, it has been downplayed and even dismissed by pharmaceutical manufacturers in the past. That has changed. Pharmaceutical firms are newly dedicated to eradicate counterfeits globally and spending more money on anticounterfeiting efforts than ever before. The confluence of three factors seems to have drastically changed the existing paradigm for the pharmaceutical industry: increasing globalization, advancing technology, and the controversies surrounding the WTO Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement and access to medicines. Given that counterfeit pharmaceuticals slip into the supply chain at every link, multinational pharmaceutical firms are searching for global solutions through increased interfirm cooperation along the supply chain. This research presents a theoretical model for characterizing the implications of these interventions on the motivations driving counterfeiters. The interventions are shown to increase the share of real pharmaceuticals and decrease the welfare losses attributable to counterfeiting. In practice, it is too early to evaluate the success of these new measures, but this research reflects on the extent of cooperation both across the supply chain and national boundaries and examines the likely long-run implications of these measures. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Pill characterization data streams for reducing exposure to inadequately identified anti-malarial medication in developing countries

“…This achievement is the result of a strict regulatory framework governing the production and distribution of pharmaceutical products and harsh sanctions for offenders [ 1 ]. But, increased globalization of the market for medicine precursors and the medicines themselves has caused a proliferation of alternative formulations and is straining supply-side approaches to medicine use regulation [ 2 , 3 ].…”

“…Digital identity metrics, coupled with ubiquitous digital information and communication infrastructure [ 15 , 16 ] enables creation of real-time medicine identification data streams that can be used to map global patterns of exposure to specific products sold as anti-malarials [ 3 , 17 ]. Real-time medicine identification data streams would begin to address one important aspect of existing information asymmetries commonly found in relatively unorganized health care markets.…”

Data and methodology

“…Counterfeiters of pharmaceuticals succeed in large part by exploiting weaknesses in supply chains, which are often fragmented (OECD, 2016). Medicines are prescribed by physicians who rarely come into contact with the medicines, and are delivered by pharmacists who commonly source from multiple wholesalers (Lybecker, 2008). In the United States, 90% of medicines are distributed by five major wholesalers.…”

Acronyms and abbreviations

“…In the United States, 90% of medicines are distributed by five major wholesalers. The remaining 10% comprise some 7 000 secondary wholesalers which specialise in purchasing and selling selected discounted products (OECD, 2016;Lybecker, 2008). The secondary suppliers fill demand in cases of spot shortages and also serve as an additional source of revenue for the primary wholesalers through pharmaceutical trading (OECD, 2016).…”