Quality Assurance of Medicines and Detection of Counterfeits

Convener: 

Tony Moffat
The School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK

Programme:

Monday 3 August (morning and afternoon)

Keynote Speakers

The mobile laboratory - A new concept in combating counterfeit medicines in rural areas
Shaohong Jin, National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products (NICPBP), Beijing, China

Multidisciplinary approach to the detection of counterfeit drugs
Mark Witkowski, FDA Forensic Chemistry Center, Cincinnati, USA

Speakers

Title TBA
Andrew Bonser, Pfizer, UK

Title TBA
Mike Claybourn, AstraZeneca, UK

Analysing medicines in Kenya using the minilab
Sam Gresham, Lloyds Pharmacy, UK

A compendial approach to detecting counterfeits - USP perspective
William F. Koch, US Pharmacopeia, USA

Sampling and testing strategies for counterfeit medicines
Gerard M. Lee, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), UK

Quality assurance of herbal medicines: Indian scenario
Bhushan K. Patwardhan, Chief Academics - Manipal Education, Bangalore, India

Authentication or fraud detection: Experience of the French Official Medicines Control Laboratory
Hervé Rebiere, Laboratory and Control Department, AFSSAPS, France

Quantification of active ingredients in potentially counterfeit tablets using near-infrared spectroscopy
Robert A. Watt, School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK

Symposium Information

Sub-standard and counterfeit medicines are a great threat to public health. They may cause death due to the lack of active drug (eg vaccines and antibiotics), or because of the presence of a toxic material (eg the substitution of diethylene glycol for glycerol). Counterfeit medicines are estimated as more than 10% of the global medicines market and in some developing countries it is thought to be as high as 50%. One prediction is that global counterfeit drug sales will reach $ 75 billion by 2010. 

This symposium discusses the latest and best developments in the analysis of pharmaceutical products to detect sub-standard and counterfeit medicines. Government initiatives have been particularly successful in the USA and China and Keynote presentations highlight these successes.