Parasitizing Trademarks of Drugs in China Breeds Resistant Malaria Parasite

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials say that counterfeit drugs and poor storage are endangering the health of millions of people in Asia.

Ron Corben wrote for Voice Of Amercia the article WTO Fears Growing Malaria Drug Resistance May Be Spreading (November 28, 2010): "In recent years, authorities cracked down against illegal factories in China. Meanwhile counterfeit producers have been found elsewhere, including Cambodia and Burma."

Simeon Bennett wrote for Asia Health Space the article Malaria Redux And Counterfeit Drugs (April 2, 2010): "In Pailin [Cambodia], a flood of counterfeit pills from China and elsewhere is helping to breed a superbug that resist even the most-effective medicine." Read .

This problem is recurring for years now:

2009: See Simeon Bennett's 2009 Bloomberg article Fake Malaria Drugs Spread, Breed Resistance to Lethal Parasite.

2008: ScienceDaily article 'Fake Malaria Drugs Made In China: Tracking Down The Threat To Global Health'.

2007: Jill McGivering's 2007 BBC News article 'Tracking the fake malaria drug threat'.

Eye for an eye

What is a fitting punishment for these counterfeiters? Denying them help when they would contract Malaria? But even if you would impose the biblical sanction of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, how can you sanction someone that contributes to the death of not one but thousands of people who contracted Malaria and use counterfeit drugs that do not cure them?

continue reading ...

Fake Medicines Advertised on Taiwanese TV, Radio and in Newspapers

Taiwan's Health Minister Yang Chih-liang warns that the public should not believe TV, radio and newspaper advertisments selling fake pharmaceuticals. Minister Yang called the proliferation of counterfeit drugs more serious than drug trafficking.

Read the China Post article here.

continue reading ...

AMP: "Economic Crisis Should Make German Government Act More Aggressively Against Counterfeiters"

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) interviewed Mr Rüdiger Stihl, chairman of the Aktionskreises gegen Produkt- und Markenpiraterie (APM). The resulting article at the site of N24 (in German) gives a good overview of the damages that are caused by counterfeit products originating from China (for 75 percent) and Turkey (10 percent) and the measures that APM is proposing.

APM claims that:

• the counterfeit products on the German market represent a value of an estimated 30 million euro;
• 70.000 jobs in Germany are lost because of the counterfeit products.

APM demands more agressive measures from the governement, especially now during the economic crisis:

• counterfeiters should get draconic sanctions, including imprisonment;
• not only should the counterfeit products be seized that tourists bought, but they should get a fine as well.

To raise public awareness and sensitise German citizens, APM is organising an exhibition, called 'Schöner Schein. Dunkler Schatten' which means 'Glamour appearance. Dark shadow', that will be held medio 2010 in 30 German shopping centres and must inform 10 million consumers about the risks of counterfeit products.

Bleak reminder

Market price of 1 kilo counterfeit viagra: 90,000 euro (dealers are in many cases not even prosecuted); Market price 1 kilo heroin: 40,000 euro (dealers are risking high jail sentences). You can guess what is the most profitable/low risk business for organised crime.

Update: Mr John Bingham wrote an article for the Telegraph.co.uk in which he claims that drug dealers switch from cocaine to fake viagra, read here.

continue reading ...

First Coordinated EU Customs Campaign Catches 34 Million Counterfeit Medicines

Reuters reports that the customs officials of the 27 EU members worked together to intercept counterfeit antibiotics, anti-cancer, anti-malaria and anti-cholesterol medicines, painkillers and Viagra.

"The main countries of origin for the illegal products were China, India and Pakistan, a [European] Commission official said."

Read the Reuters article here.

continue reading ...

Roger Bate determines China's Lethal Counterfeit Drugs Pattern

Mr Roger Bate, writer of the book “Making a Killing: The Deadly Implications of the Counterfeit Drug Trade (free pdf-version ),” wrote an article for the Far Eastern Economic Review that gives a good overview of China's counterfeit drug problems.

Mr Bate notices that China's food scandals follow a lethal pattern:

"Someone cuts a corner substituting an unsafe illegal product for a safe legal one; the legal entities trading in the product, which are often unaware of the illegal substitution, at first ignore the problem and then become embarrassed into a recall, often after pressure from foreign governments on Beijing. While Beijing threatens sanctions against the liable companies, including occasionally executing the guiltiest actors, it does little to change the likelihood of another scandal occurring."

Read Mr Bate's article 'Got Contaminated Milk?' here.

In the book 'Making a killing', Mr Bate puts the possibility of a complete victory over counterfeiters into perspective:
"Because counterfeiting represents such an easy and potentially lucrative opportunity for commercial profit, and because it spans industries as diverse as wine, electronics, and medicine, it likely will be never be eradicated. Still, if its characteristics are identified and its real effects understood, its impact may be mitigated substantially. Nowhere is this more evident-and important- than in the battle against the counterfeiting of lifesaving pharmaceuticals, a trade with dangerous implications for public health."

Read Mr Bate's book 'Making a killing' he wrote for the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research here (free pdf-version).

continue reading ...

China's Efforts Against Counterfeit Products That Kill

Feng Tao of Xinhua reports the item communicated by the Ministry of Public Security that the PSB dealt with 4,600 cases of counterfeit and inferior products between January and November 2006. Police arrested more than 5,000 people. The question unanswered in this article is how many of them got prosecuted, and of those, how many got fined or a prison sentence?

Feng also wrote about Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co., that manufactured tainted durgs that killed 11 people in Guangdong province, in May 2006, due to acute kidney failure. Read more here.

China Radio International runs with the Xinhua story that China seized 9.06 billion counterfeit brand cigarettes, another product that kills, counterfeit or not. Law enforcement agencies arrested 6,334 people with 2,313 prosecuted, said administration spokesperson Zhang Xiulian of China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration. Read more here. Again, how many of them got fined or a prison sentence?

Then again these cases may not have been brought before a judge, yet.

A related question is: do more litigations, have any result?
I wrote about it in the article: More IPR Ligitation in China is Nice, But What About The Enforcement Ratio.
In short: more litigations do not necessarily mean that infringements are on their way back. In that article I point to an objective way of measuring the impact litigations have on infringements, by using foreign customs to gather information about the number of infringements. This implies, however, that when customs improve their investigation system, like the US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did, read here, the number of infringements from one year to the next should be adjusted.

continue reading ...

Novartis' Optimistic About IPR in China

Contrary to other pharmaceutical giants Novartis is setting up a research centre in Shanghai, which is a relatively expensive location. Novartis wants to cater to globetrotting scientist, tap the ideas of the local universities and study typical Chinese reactions to some diseases.

The Economist of 11th-17th November wrote:

"What about concerns over intellectual property? Conditions are improving, says Mr Vasella [Novartis' chief exective], and are now tolerable, if not ideal. When it comes to counterfeiting, for example, producers of fake drugs are still not tracked down by the authorities, but they are dealt with when exposed by others. And since drugs take such a long time to develop, Mr Vasella believes intellectual-property protection will be sufficient by the time the research laboratory produces its first fruits."

Read the Economist article 'A Novel Prescription' here.

continue reading ...