Preventing Counterfeiting Of Drug With Pharma Labels According to an estimate; almost 20 % of the drugs sold are counterfeits of big drug brands available in the market. Costly drugs like Viagra and cancer drugs to cheap antibiotics all are available in the market as a cheap counterfeit of original product. Packaging and Labeling differently will create an obstacle for the manufacture of counterfeit drugs. Pharma labeling is one of the ways to counter counterfeit drugs. Today medicine market or pharma market is one of the fastest growing sectors, where new inventions and product improvements are taking place. Almost all the big pharma companies invest a substantial proportion of their earning in Research and Development to gain an upper hand among competitors, enjoy a monopoly of the drug found by them and a premium for it, to fund their future research programs. The major challenge faced by any pharma product enjoying the benefit of research and innovation of their R&D team is a threat of counterfeit drug manufacturing companies who are ready to copy their product and eat their profits as well as bring down the reputation of the company by selling substandard product to the customer. Companies can resort to many tactics to overcome copycat me too products, which are quite cheap and low quality, and produced just to milk the goodwill garnered by company in the market. These tactics could be like using strong lawyers’ team to bring the culprit to book or use innovative packaging and pharma label to overcome the problem of cheap imitation. According to WHO (World Health organization) the use of counterfeit drugs or fake drugs cannot be ascertained. There is still no accurate figure to estimate counterfeit drugs. A new name is being given to these types of products SSFFC (Substandard, Spurious, Falsely Labeled, Falsified and Counterfeit) Medicines. These medicines are available all over the world to gain more profit easily over the brand build by R&D of another company. For example there are many places that are selling fake Cialis, which should be only available on the prescription of doctor. The copying is not only limited to actual molecule of the drug but also in packaging and pharma labeling of the medicine. According to economist Roger Blake, who specializes in health economy and also the author of the book ‘PHAKE’, that the companies of countries like India and China are in the forefront of copying and producing fake medicines. Pharma labeling innovatively is one of the best ways to counter the counterfeit medicines available in the market. These pharma labels could be used in such a way that it becomes a costly affair for a copycat. All the pharma companies that have good number of patented products are taking various measures to overcome the competition and threat generating from SSFFC or counterfeit fake drug copying their products. By using Medical representative to impart the use of their
products to doctors who in turn recommend it to patients and making them aware of the brand value and innovative drug of their company. Also by good advertising and making the customers aware of the differences in the pharma labels of their product and the pharma label of the product of the SSFFC. Health departments of many countries like Rwanda, EU, etc. are taking special care to test the drugs reaching their ports and if found them SSFFC then penalizing the importers. India is also taking measures to stop the companies from producing fake drugs by inspection of factory premises as well as bringing the culprits to the book. Same types of measures are being taken by china nowadays to stop SSFFC. Lasersec (India) Pvt. Ltd. 5C/9, Ist Floor, New Rohtak Road, Karol Bagh, New Delhi – 110005, India Phone: +91 – 011- 28712717 Webpage: http://www.lasersec.in/pharma-labels-manufacturers.shtml