Pharmaceutical companies can employ anti-counterfeiting solutions to provide them with real-time information on rogue auction sites.

1. How to Keep Counterfeit Drugs off the Market
Statistics reveal that counterfeit and gray market sales amount to a whopping $300-600 billion annually. The
incidence of counterfeit drugs is higher in underdeveloped and developing countries where there are almost non-
existent regulatory systems to control them. Therefore Asia, Africa and Latin America are the major locations for
counterfeit drug sales. Be it branded drugs or generic, both have found their way into the counterfeit market.
More than half of these counterfeit drugs can be found on the Internet. Online auction sites have become “virtual”
drug markets but buyers are unaware of the dangers of buying such spurious medicines they believe to be
genuine.
Buying counterfeit drugs can be fatal; therefore people who buy drugs online should understand that there may
be serious pitfalls. Such online shoppers need to be extremely wary of drugs that are far cheaper than their
original price. If the price is too low to merit the actual quality of the product, it is like a warning that you are
considering a counterfeit product. It is prudent to buy drugs online only from reputed sites.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) publishes a Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites
(VIPPS) list. These are sites that have completed an NABP accreditation process and are typically safe for
consumers. They also have a list of non-recommended sites published on their website for consumer safety. As a
general rule it is best to stay away from auction sites that offer drugs without boxes, warranty documentation or
packaging details.
The World Health Organization has tried to keep a check on counterfeit drugs, and it was with this intention that
the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce, or IMPACT, was created in 2006. The simple
objective was to bring different people together to collaborate in the fight against the menace of counterfeit
drugs. The main areas of focus were legislative and regulatory infrastructure, regulatory implementation,
enforcement, technology and communication. So even as there is some action counterfeiting being taken,
pharmaceutical companies need to proactively against search for gray market product or potential activities since
drugs may have been diverted from authorized distributors.
Pharmaceutical companies can employ several pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting solutions to provide them with
complete visibility into the worldwide market, including real-time information on rogue auction sites. It would be
prudent for genuine pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers use anti-counterfeiting solutions to assist
them in their efforts to shut these counterfeiters down to ensure that their brand values are not damaged.