Interpol launches pharma crime unit
Signs three-year funding deal with medicine manufacturers
Interpol, the International Police Agency, is to create a pharmaceutical crime prevention programme after striking a three-year deal with 29 medicine manufacturers that will provide €4.5m to help tackle the problem.
The money will go towards creating a new programme that will build on the work of Interpol’s existing medical product counterfeiting and pharmaceutical crime (MPCPC) unit.
Interpol said the initiative would ‘focus on the prevention of all types of pharmaceutical crime including branded and generic drug counterfeiting as well as the identification and dismantling of organised crime networks linked to this illegal activity, which generates millions in illicit profits every year’. It will include training, capacity building and targeted enforcement actions.
With no country, no drug and no medical product immune from counterfeiting, a global effort is needed to combat this threat
Ronald Noble, Interpol’s Secretary General, said: ‘With no country, no drug and no medical product immune from counterfeiting, a global effort is needed to combat this threat which puts the lives of millions of people at risk every single day.’
Companies involved in the initiative include Eisai (Japan), Sanofi (France) and Eli Lilly & Co (US).
A key part of the programme will be raising public awareness of the dangers of fake drugs, particularly for patients buying online.
The World Health Organisation claims more than half of the medicines bought from illegal sites that conceal their physical address are counterfeit.
Eisai president and CEO Haruo Naito said: ‘Both brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals are susceptible to counterfeiting, putting patient lives at risk. This is why we have joined our colleagues across the biopharmaceutical industry to partner with Interpol.’