A pharmaceutical company recently alerted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that some drugs taken during a 2008 pharmaceutical cargo theft may be beginning to reappear in the market. On October 17, 2008, a shipment of Carbatrol and Adderall XR made by Shire Pharmaceuticals was stolen en route between the company’s manufacturing facility in North…
Read MoreEighteen countries, including the U.S., recently participated in military maneuvers in Panama City, Panama to prepare for any potential terrorist act that could disrupt maritime traffic. Over the course of 12 days more than 2,000 civilian and military personnel took part in the exercises designed to protect the canal that handles 5 percent of all…
Read MoreAuthorities in the Philippines recently arrested a man from Pakistan for allegedly selling pills that can cause abortions, some of which may have been counterfeit. Mohammed Hanif, a 53-year-old, was arrested for selling the drugs in a supermarket parking lot in Libis, said chief inspector Jerome Balbontin of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit in…
Read MoreFigures recently released by a cargo security firm show that Mexico has become a popular spot for pharmaceutical cargo theft. In the second quarter of 2010 there were six pharmaceutical cargo thefts in Mexico, compared to three in the first three months of the year, according to logistics security firm FreightWatch. While the number of…
Read MoreThe amount of counterfeit drugs arriving in Switzerland increased 75 percent in the first half of the year, according to health officials. The Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) said that it had received 992 reports of suspicious, potentially counterfeit drug imports from Federal Customs officials through the first half of 2010, according to SwissInfo.ch.…
Read MoreResearchers for an internet security company are warning consumers about a new email spam campaign that is sending users to an ostensibly online Canadian pharmacy. Avira, a German antivirus company, says that the campaign sends spam to email accounts that are similar to those associated with phishing attacks, Softpedia.com. “In the recent past we saw…
Read MoreSouth Korea estimates the quantity of counterfeit erectile dysfunction (ED) medication smuggled into the country is 23 times greater than five years ago, according to the Korea Herald. The National Tax Service (NTS) has detected 18 cases of smuggled impotence medicine worth 90.6 billion won ($77 million) in total for the first six months of…
Read MoreChina released the names of thirty-three counterfeit medications on the loose. The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) disclosed on August 17 that thirty-three counterfeit medicines are circulating in the country and urged local and regional governments to vigilantly monitor local pharmacies and medical institutions for counterfeit copies of trademarked medications. Tongrentang (TRT), a prestigious…
Read MoreA new ‘track and trace’ technology is being developed to uniquely mark pharmaceutical products and improve traceability. The technique will allow faster identification and resolution of any manufacturing quality problems but will also prove invaluable as an anti-counterfeit measure because the specific coding and validation systems are almost impossible to copy. This technology…
Read MoreGermany is investigating dozens of pharmacies in the north of the country for suspected involvement in the distribution of illegal medicines, including counterfeits, reports securingpharma.com. Prosecutors have brought charges against one pharmacist from the Braunschweig region who is accused of handling €1.68m-worth. Pharmacies in Hamburg, Celle, Verden and Kiel are also being probed, reports the…
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