Counterfeit
Counterfeit drugs are a substantial and growing problem, both in the developed and in the developing world.
Legal definition of “counterfeit drug varies by country, but one useful definition of that is that of the World Health Organization, which “defines a counterfeit pharmaceutical product as a product that is deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or source.
United States Food and Drug Administration recently announced a major new initiative to fight counterfeit drugs. The purpose of this initiative is to utilize new and innovative techniques to fight counterfeiting.
Counterfeit drugs represent a two-fold danger to the public. On one hand, counterfeits that do not contain the proper active ingredient in the proper quantity result in the patient’s condition going untreated. On the other hand, counterfeits may contain toxic materials that result in the patient being poisoned. In both cases, the patient has been the victim of fraud, and the confidence that the public places in the health-care system is undermined.
Determining whether a suspect product is genuine or counterfeit is often done with wet-chemical procedures, such as thin-layer chromatography. Accurate and reliable performance of these techniques requires skilled personnel and the appropriate laboratory facilities. Furthermore, these methods often cannot be performed as rapidly as would be desired.
Verification of the identity of a pharmaceutical products can be achieved using a Bruker Optics FT-NIR spectrometer - MPA™ Multi Purpose Analyzer. The speed and precision of this analytical system can aid health authorities in their fight to protect the public from the increasing trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals.