China
Africa
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The emergence of the Traditional Mongolian Medicine industry
Published in Stephan Kloos, Calum Blaikie, Asian Medical Industries, 2022
None of this means that the government’s management of TMM is the only problem. Another issue, Dr Mendsaikhan from Mong-Em explained, are Mongolian medicinal plants, which in contrast to non-endemic ingredients (which constitute 60–70 percent of Mongolian medicines) cannot simply be bought and imported according to demand: “They are a very limited resource, especially now with climate change and desertification. This is why running a TMM company is not very good business, because we can’t expand much.” Nor does the comparatively well-developed TMM industry in China mean that all is well there. As mentioned above, environmental pollution, counterfeiting practices, and industrial-scale herb cultivation are all seen to be having negative impacts upon the quality of these medicines.
India’s Free Trade Agreements: Implications for Access to Medicines in India and the Global South
Published in Hans Löfgren, The Politics of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Access to Medicines, 2017
A notable feature of the debate around IP enforcement is the deliberate attempt to couch the pressure for the adoption of such measures in public health terms. Referred to as anti-counterfeiting measures, the rhetoric around IP enforcement uses the different meanings of counterfeit (i.e. fake in everyday parlance and trademark violation under the TRIPS Agreement) to argue that such measures are required to ensure that patients have access to safe and good quality medicines. However, IP enforcement cannot ensure the safety and quality of a medicine which requires investment in drug regulatory frameworks.65 In fact, there is increasing evidence that aggressive IP enforcement hampers access to medicines.
Communications
Published in Emmanuel Tsekleves, Rachel Cooper, Design for Health, 2017
None of these are real surprises, and there are already practical actions that anticipate these developments. For example, from 2018 onwards, medicine packaging must be ‘tamper evident’, which means that it must be possible to see immediately if anyone has tried to open packaging earlier. A second example is the serialisation of all medicine packs by unique identification numbers. Both these developments aim to reduce the risks of counterfeiting and illegal sales of medicines.
Application of on-dose identification and blockchain to prevent drug counterfeiting
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2018
This inspired me to launch a startup called Oggic to prevent the entry of counterfeit drugs into the supply chain. Oggic is proposing that micro QR codes be printed directly onto the drugs using tablet printing machines, which have been in existence for more than 60 years and are based on the principle of inkjet printing or rubber rolls [3]. The messages contained within these micro QR codes can be cryptographically signed by the manufacturer and can be verified by anyone including patients by scanning the codes with their smartphones. These micro codes generated by Oggic’s software to be printed onto drugs will be dynamic and will be different for each batch of drug manufacturing. Furthermore, each drug transaction i.e. the movement of a drug between players will be recorded on the blockchain making it tamper proof, decentralised, timestamped, and highly secure. Since each supplier would need to scan and sign the message as the drug moves through the supply chain, it would be a lot easier to trace where the counterfeiting happened. The traceability of the drug in real time while it is being shipped using micro QR codes printed onto drugs could help prevent drug counterfeiting in the future.
All the players in the game: driving home the global commitment for legitimate drugs
Published in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy, 2018
A global term derived from counterfeiting definitions remains to be seen for these medicines. Still, while debated and questioned [6], a comprehensive collective of all misguided medicine requires a global alignment. The World Health Organization (WHO) has taken an assertive approach in global consensus and classified the entire category of these medications are “substandard, spurious, falsely labeled, falsified, and counterfeit” (SSFFC) [7]. SSFFC encompasses various aspects of poor quality medicine and allows for a comprehensive approach to definitions that are not yet consistently used throughout the world [8].