Internation a l P h a r m a c eu t i ca l S t u d e nt s ’ Fed e rat i o n

IPSF NEWSLETTER Issue N°83

Anti-Counterfeit Drug Campaign

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International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation

Anti-Counterfeit Drug Campaign
 IPSF NEWSLETTER
Summary
IPSF Public Health Edition
Anti-Counterfeit Drug Campaign Newsletter

2
Introduction to the ACDC
Subcommittee.
2010-2011 January 9, 2011

Hello everyone,

4
HK plans to “name and
shame” fake-drug retailers. Happy New Year! I hope the New Year’s
The Straits Times.
2010 Dec 30
festivities were indicative of an excellent
year to come. The counterfeit drug world has
been experiencing some new changes, so this

5
Fighting counterfeit drugs
newsletter will be highlighting a few of the
with mobile technology. recent advances in technology. In addition, we
Fast Company. have had a changing of the guard within the
2010 Dec 6
Anti-Counterfeit Drug Campaign (ACDC), so we
would like to take this opportunity to introduce
the new committee members.

6
Edible optical tags make a
stand against counterfeit
drugs. If you have any questions concerning the
Photonics Spectra. 2010 newsletter or ACDC,v please contact the ACDC
coordinator at counterfeit@ipsf.org.

8 Sincerely,
Award-winning malaria
er
scientist warns of drug
r i sti n e Coop mpaign
resistance. The Globe Ch Drug C
a
e r fe i t
and Mail. unt 0-11
2010 Oct 25 Anti-Co rdinator 201
Coo
ACDC

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IPSF NEWSLETTER

ACDC Committee Members

2010-2011
Christine Cooper
USA - University of New Mexico

W hat is your nickname? (Why do you have

this nickname?): Frinkles – My parents
gave me this nickname when I was little and I
thought “freckles” was pronounced “frinkles”. It
has stuck since!

W hat are your duties on the committee?:

ACDC Coordinator – Making sure your
counterfeit drug information stays up-to-date
and gets out to you

If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?: I would be able to fly! I travel constantly, and
while I’m short, I don’t like the lack of legroom and space in general on planes. Plus, if I could fly, I
wouldn’t have to run according to the airline’s schedule; I could just get up and go whenever I wanted.

Ahmad Mohmmed Muzzmail

Sudan - University of Khartoum

W hat is your nickname? (Why do you have this nickname?): Mr.

President – I have always loved leadership and being sucessful.
Classical Arabo is the language I use, which is the language of the official
letters in political demonstration.

W hat are your duties on the committee?

Committee Member

I f you had a superpower, what would it be and why?: If I had to

choose a supernatural power, it would be mind-reading. You could
easily travel the world and be able to know what other people feel like.
This force would help you understand others when it is not clear, and
you can decipher the genuine from the false and hypocritical. No one
can fool you then.
ACDC

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 IPSF NEWSLETTER
ACDC Committee Members
2010-2011
Mohammad Kawsar Sharif (Siam)
Bangladesh - North South University (NSU)

W hat is your nickname? (Why do you have this nickname?): SIMU

(My friends give me this name) and MO.

W hat are your duties on the committee?:

Committee Member

I f you had a superpower, what would it be and why?: I would like to

be able to change every bad thing to a good thing. I would stop all
violence, wars, etc. and make this world a better place to live in where
love and passion a passion to do good things would spread and hatred and
violence would be washed away.

Sandeep Singh
India - Dr L.H Hiranandani College of Pharmacy

W hat is your nickname? (Why do you have this nickname?): Aspirin

(My friends gave me this name because they feel that I am a pain
killer for them)

W hat are your duties on the committee?

Committee Member

I f you had a superpower, what would it be and why?: I’d want to be

able to read minds along as well as having photographic memory
(super brain), but only if I could turn it off when I wanted to. I think if I had
both of these powers nothing could come between me and success.

Georgina Gál

W hat is your nickname? (Why do you have this nickname?):

Gina

W hat are your duties on the committee?

Committee Member

I f you had a superpower, what would it be and why?: that would have to
ACDC

be multitasking because I hate to be bored :D!

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IPSF NEWSLETTER

HK Plans to “Name and Shame”

Fake-Drug Retailers
HONG KONG - HONG Kong is launching a “name and shame” campaign
against retailers caught selling counterfeit medicine as the city steps up its crackdown on
the mushrooming illicit trade.
The financial hub’s customs department said that beginning from early next year it will
expose fake-drug purveyors by printing their names in a monthly magazine published by
the Hong Kong Consumer Council.
The move would help inform the public about fake goods, protect intellectual property
rights, and “provide a deterrent effect on those unscrupulous dispensaries”, the customs
department said in a statement to AFP on Thursday.
“Hong Kong customs accords top priority to handling counterfeit medicines since
counterfeit medicines will
affect people’s health”, it
said.
http://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2008/068.html?page=2

Experts have warned

that the trade is ballooning
worldwide, particularly
on the Internet, with
some drugs containing
dangerous ingredients
including heavy metals
such as arsenic and lead-
based paints.
Hong Kong’s customs
agency said it has
received hundreds of
complaints over the
past few years about In Hong Kong markets, Western medicines are always displayed
fake pharmaceuticals separately from traditional Chinese medicines. In some shops, herbal
and traditional Chinese and animal ingredients and supplements are displayed openly, where
medicines. – AFP packaged pharmaceuticals are generally kept in glass display cases.

Reference:
ACDC

AFP. HK plans to ‹name and shame› fake-drug retailers. The Straits Times[Internet]. 2010 Dec 30 [cited 2011 Jan 9]; Available
from: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_619034.html

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 IPSF NEWSLETTER
Fighting Counterfeit Drugs
With Mobile Technology
Counterfeit drugs are a huge problem in Africa
and elsewhere. HP and the African social enterprise
http://e-phonenumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/cell-phone-numbers-made-public.jpg
network today a new program that helps patients
in Ghana and Nigeria verify that their medicines are
genuine.
Having malaria is bad enough without having to
worry about whether the drugs that are supposed
to cure you may in fact kill you. Counterfeit drugs
are estimated to be a $75-billion-per-year business,
implicated in the deaths of an estimated 700,000
people around the world annually. Ten percent
of the global drug market may be counterfeit.
According to the World Health Organization,
ten percent of the global drug market may be
counterfeit—and that figure may be close to 25% in
developing countries.
“It’s absolutely imperative that people can trust HP runs the hosting infrastructure and the security
the authenticity of the drugs they are consuming, systems for the service out of its data centers in
and this system will give them an easy and Frankfurt. Since mobile phones are extremely
effective way of doing so,” said Bright Simons, common in Nigeria and Ghana and becoming more
founder of mPedigree. Here’s how so everyday, the system reaches most
the system works. Upstream at “Counterfeit drugs people at risk. Bright Simons, whose
the pharmaceuticals plant, HP and are estimated to be a mPedigree Network has integrated the
mPedgree’s partners place a scratch- $75-billion-per-year many components of the plan, likes to
off label containing a verification code business, implicated in the speak of building “an infrastructure of
on the medication containers. “We deaths of something like trust.”
control the printing of the codes on the 700,000 people around “It’s a free service,” says Gabi
packet,” Paul Ellingstad, HP’s Global the world annually” Zedlmayer, HP’s vice president of its
Health Director for Social Innovation, Office of Global Social Innovation,
tells Fast Company. “It’s a tightly controlled and funded largely by the pharmaceutical companies
regulated printing process, protected at all stages.” involved, including May & Baker Nigeria PLC. She
Downstream at the pharmacy, the patient buys the adds that as a cloud-based system, it should be
medicine, scratches the label to receive the code, easily scalable. “At the end of the day, it’s all about
and texts it to verify the drug’s authenticity. saving people’s lives,” she says.
For more details on the service, check out the widget HP put together, below.
Reference:
ACDC

Zax D. Fighting counterfeit drugs with mobile technology.Fast Company [Internet]. 2010 Dec 6 [cited 2011 Jan 9]; Available
from: http://www.fastcompany.com/1707667/hp-and-mpedigree-fight-counterfeit-drugs

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IPSF NEWSLETTER

Edible Optical Tags Make a Stand

Against Counterfeit Drugs
HONOLULU – The global
pharmaceutical market is worth $800 billion
annually, and approximately 10 percent of this is
thought to be counterfeit. Most drug manufacturers
employ printed codes or serial numbers, bar codes
or hologram stickers on packaging to authenticate
their products. But a new optically read microtag
that can be applied directly to the surface of the
tablet or capsule could provide a more robust
solution to combat counterfeiters.
“On-dose authentication is a relatively new
and emerging market that has been developing
quietly in the background,” said Mike O’Neill,
chief technology officer at TruTag Technologies.
“There clearly is an industry need for on-dose
authentication because the counterfeiters have
figured out how to beat current packaging-level
security systems.”

The technology,
although extremely
well suited to the
pharmaceutical and
supplements industry,
also is scalable to
applications in a wide
variety of markets,
including semiconductors,
consumer electronics,
aircraft parts, medical
devices, food and wine,
textiles and luxury goods.
The microtags contain
tiny nanopores, or voids,
manufactured to produce
Tablets with TruTags can be verified through blister the tag’s unique spectral
signature. The nano-
packs using a portable spectrometer. porous structure can be
controlled to affect the
TruTag Technologies has developed an edible localized index of refraction, such that, in effect,
microtag that reflects a unique spectral light the tablets are coated with custom-made optical
signature that can be measured using a simple, interference filters. The company has controlled
low-cost spectrometer-based optical reader. This the manufacturing process so that up to a trillion
means that tablets can be verified through clear unique spectral patterns can be achieved, allowing
packaging without having to be removed from for an enormous amount of data management
ACDC

their blister packs. flexibility for customers.

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Edible Optical Tags Make a Stand
Against Counterfeit Drugs
Because the tags are made from clear, 100 percent
silicon dioxide, which has been safely used as an
ingredient in food and drugs for decades, they are
both edible and biologically inert. The spectral code
is etched into a silicon wafer from which microtags
are created, and it is converted to silicon dioxide by
heat. The resultant microtags, called TruTags, can
be associated with information such as product
strength, lot number, expiration date, authorized
country of sale and authorized customer.
IPSF NEWSLETTER
With tablet and capsule manufacturers in mind,
the tags are applied via industry-standard pan
coaters so that they can be applied to the surface
of tablets or mixed into capsule shells during
manufacture. The hope is that drugmakers will
employ microtags for quality assurance, returns
monitoring and in cases where counterfeit product
is of concern.

Hundreds of TruTags occupy an area about the

size of the head of a pin. Each tag is barely visible
to the naked eye. Images courtesy of TruTag
Technologies.

For advanced security, the microtag

characteristics can be linked to – and verified by
– other information printed on the package, in
such a way that the medicine and packaging are
authenticated together.
“Tampering with either the package or the
contents in this scenario would flag a security
violation. The microtags can also be used to track
placebos versus active dosages in clinical trial
programs to ensure data integrity and speed time
to market,” O’Neill said.
Hundreds of TruTags
occupy an area about the
size of the head of a pin.
Images courtesy of TruTag
Technologies
TruTag Technologies currently is in trials with a
major US nutraceutical company and has tested
the microtags in a variety of applications both with
clear and nominally opaque coatings.
O’Neill said that this pilot partner applied the
tags to its tablets without making any changes to
its existing manufacturing process and without
any effect on the look or feel of the coatings. “We
are now in four-corner testing to see how the
tagged tablets perform under accelerated shelf life
conditions, by applying high heat and humidity,” he
added.

Reference:
ACDC

Freebody M. Edible optical tags make a stand against counterfeit drugs. Photonics Spectra [Internet]. 2010 [cited 2011 Jan 9];
Available from: http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=45203

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IPSF NEWSLETTER

Award-Winning
Malaria Scientist Warns of Drug Resistance

The most effective malaria treatment ever discovered was not developed by a team of
scientists in a high-tech lab, it was created using a traditional Chinese herbal remedy that had
been used to treat illness for hundreds of years. The treatment is made using the compound
artemisinin, which is isolated from an herb used in traditional Chinese medicine. It is 95
percent effective at curing malaria, according to the World Health Organization. However
vNicholas White, one of the scientists who pioneered the development of artemisinin-
based malaria therapies, is warning that growing parasite resistance to the treatment,
spurred in large part by the massive marketing of counterfeit versions, could have major
consequences down the road – perhaps even making the drug ineffective.

The WHO’s recommendations

might not mean much,
however, unless something is
done to curb the market for
counterfeit artemisinin drugs.
These often contain small
amounts of artemisinin – not
enough to treat the malaria, but
http://www.editionsmondialis.com/2010/11/et-revoila-la-malaria/

enough for the bug to develop

resistance. Furthermore,
people who take counterfeit
artemisinin don’t take the
recommended combination
of other anti-malarial drugs,
which also greatly increases
the chance of drug resistance.

Reference:
Weeks C. Award-winning malaria scientist warns of drug resistance. The Globe and Mail [Internet]. 2010 Oct 25 [cited 2011
ACDC

Jan 9]; Available from:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/award-winning-malaria-scientist-warns-of-drug-resistance/article1771762/

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International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation

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