Antonyia Parvanova, vice-chair of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe grouping of MEPs, told an event at the European Parliament organised by the European Generic Medicines Association (EGA) last week that technology should only be considered as a secondary line of defence if all the other measures are proven to fail.
"It is tough criminal sanctioning and not bar coding that is going to stop counterfeiters," she added.
The European Commission last year proposed to change the law in Europe to make certain categories of pharmaceutical products carry a safety feature such as a serialisation number or safety seal that would help to identify falsified products.
The EGA event comes just weeks after the industry association that represents European originator pharmaceutical companies, EFPIA, unveiled a serialisation pilot project in Sweden being tested by Swedish pharmaceutical retailer Apoteket and local wholesalers Tamro & Oriola.
The pilot involves a small data matrix used to number each pack of medicine dispensed to patients that can be checked by the pharmacist to ensure that the product is not a counterfeit. EFPIA said the pilot project was a response to the European Commission's proposal for a mass serialisation of medicinal products.
