EGA Press Release

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

BEHAVIOURAL MEASURES ARE KEY IN PROTECTING PATIENTS
AGAINST COUNTERFEITED MEDICINES IN EUROPE

“There are no reported cases of generic medicines counterfeited within the EU. Generic medicines represent a very low counterfeit risk due to their affordable prices for patients. Therefore any technical solutions for generic medicines should be carefully considered as the European generic industry accounts for half of the market by volume but only 18% by value”, said Hugo Carradinha, senior manager health economics affairs during the event on anti-counterfeiting at the European Parliament chaired by Jorgo Chatzimarkakis MEP.

During his presentation, Mr. Carradinha, stressed that to increase patients’ safety in the fight against counterfeiting, the focus should be on the internet and illegal supply chain where the problem lies.
According to the WHO*, “more than 50% of the medicines sold over the internet are counterfeit”. The legal supply chain is already well protected. If expensive originator brands are at high risk of being counterfeited, then compulsory technical solutions should be considered for these specific brands.

The European Generic medicines Association (EGA) believes that the fight against counterfeiting should primarily focus on behavioural measures that ensure patients’ and supply chain security, by harmonising criminal law among member states. Focus points should also include increasing cooperation and operations between member states and the security authorities, ensuring that business operations are with certified partners only, increasing requirements for wholesaling licences and internet law enforcement on sales of medical products. Only if those fail then, as a secondary line of defence technical solutions may be considered. So far, experience shows that technical solutions have only been proved efficient on recalls or stopping fraud reimbursement, but lacked efficiency in the actual fight
against counterfeiting.

Any proposal on technical solutions aiming to increase patients’ safety in the legal supply chain should be proven to achieve greater patient safety, be based on risk assessment, be cost effective, be cost proportional and guarantee confidentiality for patients and company commercial information.

*WHO - Fact sheet revised 14 November 2006

Presentation: Combating Counterfeiting of Medicines Identifying Key Problems and Proposing Key Solutions | Hugo Carradinha, Senior Manager Health Economics Affairs | 30 September 2009

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For further information contact Hugo Carradinha
Tel: +32 (0)2 736 84 11