Obviously, having a tighter supply chain has an obvious ROI especially in terms of shrinkage and returns. But the soft benefits are where a company can realize astronomical and often immeasurable returns. The global threat of counterfeit drugs is obviously already out of control. It hurts the brand, the creditability of the company, it takes money directly out of the pockets of each and every employee of the company and it hurts the community. Counterfeit drugs are essentially mass murder and economic terrorism. There is also the threat of lawsuits from the customer it hurts. Already, the US has seen the first court case brought against two drug companies for allegedly failing to act to protect customers over fake drugs. Both companies settled out of court, apparently for US$72 million.

There are already customers in many less developed countries who do not trust certain brands of drugs as a result of counterfeits and this has happened here in the US as well. Much of what is purchased online here in the US from “so called” Canadian online pharmacies are counterfeit. In fact, over 50 percent of the shipments coming into the US from online drug sales from these companies that call themselves Canadian based are actually coming from South America, China, Pakistan and several other places that would surprise you. And ~23 percent of these drugs are counterfeit! The origins of these drugs are often rogue countries such as the DPRK.

Organized crime syndicates, drug cartels and even terrorist organizations have turned to this lucrative market because of the simplicity of making fakes, the low risk of getting caught and the lax penalties. As an example, counterfeiting money in China is punishable by death while counterfeiting drugs has a maximum fine of 500RMB (~$73.00 USD) – all this at the expense of our company’s brands, our drug discovery, the money it steals from our economy and of course the consumer that it often kills.

Fake drugs have become more deadly than terrorism. Forty years of terrorism has killed ~65,000 people, compared with ~200,00 in one year alone in China from counterfeit drugs. This is obviously an important topic and we can no longer “wait” for the FDA or anyone else to tell us when we should do this – As i said, starting an initiative now is both morally and financially responsible.

In my opinion custom in-house designed labelling solutions based on general labelling software present a far higher compliance risk to Life Science companies compared to using purpose designed FDA Compliant labelling software