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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