Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- China jailed eight sex-pill makers and raided more than 1,400 drug dens this month as the government stepped up its fight to control an estimated $3 billion of fake drugs in the world’s fastest-growing pharmaceuticals market.
China criminalized the manufacture of counterfeit medicines this year and raised maximum penalties to the death sentence to try to contain illegal production in a market that researcher IMS Health estimates will swell 17 percent to $48 billion in the next year. Sales of counterfeits in the country have grown at about 15 percent annually, with about $1.2 billion exported, according to a United Nations report.
Online sales and a growing health-conscious middle class, coupled with the government’s desire to consolidate the industry, is creating “the perfect storm” of fake drugs as some smaller producers turn to unlicensed copies to stay in business, said Kent Kedl, Greater China managing director at Control Risks. Producers including Pfizer Inc. say the illegal sales cost the industry lost revenue and can be dangerous, damaging the reputation of authentic medicines.
Less than 1 percent of medicines in developed markets and as much as 30 percent or more in developing countries are fake, the World Health Organization estimates. China and India are likely the biggest suppliers of the counterfeits, which cause 700,000 deaths a year among malaria and tuberculosis sufferers alone, according to the Washington-based International Policy Network.
“It’s one of the most horrific crimes there is, because you’re playing on people’s illness,” said Scott Davis, 53, a former U.S. customs official who heads security in Asia Pacific for Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker.
About 40 percent of China’s estimated 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) sales of counterfeit medicines, health-care products and medical equipment last year were exported, according to the 2010 report by the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime.
Source: Bloomberg News, November 18, 2011
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