Pharmaceutical company Pfizer is to train Chinese officials on ways to spot fake medicines in an effort to tackle the country's growing counterfeit drug problem.

Pfizer last week signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration to provide medicines safety training to agency staff. The company signed a similar agreement in December 2003 with the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce, one of the key bodies in charge of fighting intellectual property infringement in the city.

The agreements, between a multinational pharmaceutical company and a Chinese government agency over ways to tackle counterfeiting, are thought to be the first of their kind in the country.

Pfizer said it would train officials in drug authentication to prepare them to go into areas of Shanghai where counterfeit products are being manufactured, and to shut down those operations.

John Theriault, vice-president of global security for Pfizer, said the goal was to reduce the amount of fake medicines produced in China — recognized as the world's leading supplier of counterfeits — and to limit the amount of those products available for export.

"Counterfeiting is a serious problem, particularly in Asia, and products manufactured there are turning up in the US with increasing frequency," said Theriault. "We're now up against large and sophisticated criminal organizations with global reach, and we must address this problem on a global basis."

Pfizer said that investigations revealed a formulation for counterfeit Viagra found in Shanghai had been detected in counterfeit tablets seized in the US and 17 other countries. And the company claimed that thousands of deaths associated with fake drugs used to treat a range of illnesses had been reported in China.

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