Pfizer ‘taking drug counterfeiting seriously’

Pfizer has given an account on the nature and extent of counterfeited pharmaceuticals in the UK and called for more effort to be expended in dealing with the problem.

BBC Radio Five Live Wake Up To The Money programme this week discussed the University of London’s School of Pharmacy report into counterfeit medication, a study partly funded by Pfizer.

Kate Lloyd, medical director at Pfizer UK, told the programme: “Clearly it is unwise for people to buy prescription medicines over the internet without seeing a doctor and are being sure that that medicine is right for them.”

However, she added that patients being supplied with drugs from a legitimate pharmacist would expect to pick up the treatment prescribed by their doctor, but that they cannot be entirely certain of this.

The World Health Organisation estimates that over 10 per cent of the drugs in the global medicines market are counterfeit. Dr Lloyd told the BBC that while she felt the figure for the UK would be less than this, she stated that approximations could only be based on detection of the problem.

Professor David Taylor, an author of the report, told the programme that the problem was rare but with potentially fatal consequences for those taking wrongly formulated or administered substances.