Counterfeit pharmaceutical products are a global problem originating not just in developing countries like India but also developed countries like the US and Switzerland. Regulators in the European Union and the US keep coming up with new data on global spurious drugs supply. In 2005, as much as 75% of Europe?s fake medicines originated from India. But by 2007, as statistics released by the European Commission on customs seizure of counterfeit goods show, India was pushed to the second slot by none other than Switzerland which produces some of the finest precision-made goods in the world. The Swiss manufactured 40% of the fake drugs seized in the EU in 2007. The US, which claims to have the most powerful regulator in the world, stands at the eighth position, behind the UAE and Hong Kong.
India?s mounting dominance in the western world as a maker of cheap generic drugs has brought it into the limelight, but with that comes responsibility. If India has to maintain a strong and globally competitive pharma industry, there is no room for compromise on quality. Unfortunately, Indian drug makers continue to be pulled up for compromising on the quality of drugs they supply to the US market and elsewhere.
Recently, an official from the Indian drug regulatory authority, in a private conversation, expressed concern over how medicines were crudely packaged and kept in sacks as if they were fertilisers at the tax-free manufacturing haven in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. Perhaps he was exaggerating, but any such laxity comes at a great risk to human lives.
More pertinently, reports have bared the existence of a huge counterfeit trade, and how counterfeiters resort to such criminality like filling capsules with brick powder, coating them with yellow paint and using furniture polish to give a nice, shiny finish.
India needs to come down on counterfeits with an iron hand. India?s global recognition ought to come on the strength of its chemical research and reverse engineering acumen. It can ill-afford the notoriety of being a major hub for counterfeit drugs.
?reghu.balakrishnan@expressindia.com