Medical bottles with tracking codes are shown here in the McKesson medical distribution center in Delran, N.J.
DELRAN, N.J. — Big pharmaceutical companies are testing new tracking technology they hope will help them spot counterfeit drugs before they reach consumers' medicine cabinets. By putting tags that transmit radio waves on medicine bottles sent to drug stores, company officials think they will be able to detect fake drugs that aren't moving through usual supply chains.
The drug companies' concerns about counterfeiting have aroused skepticism among some who see the issue as a way to scare Americans away from buying cheaper drugs from foreign countries. Still, efforts to implement radio frequency identification technology, or RFID, are gaining momentum.
A distribution center in Delran, owned by wholesaler McKesson Corp., is one of a number of centers nationwide involved in a pilot project shipping small quantities of RFID- labeled drug bottles from manufacturing plants to pharmacies.
There, a worker sets a box of tagged drug bottles on a table where a radio-wave scanner and computer run through a list of scenarios involving theft, recalled drugs, outdated drugs or other logistical errors.
"The track record has been pretty good with it," said Lon Mietka, the operations manager in Delran.
The $3 million project includes drug makers such as New Jersey's Johnson & Johnson, Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., Merck & Co. and Wyeth. Distributors, such as Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp., and retailers, such as CVS Corp. and Rite Aid Corp., are also participating.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year urged the industry to adopt RFID, citing an increase in counterfeiting cases from six cases of fake prescription drugs in 2000 to 22 cases in 2003.
The agency is concerned about the increased sophistication seen in some cases, such as the discovery of fake versions of the cholesterol drug Lipitor that caused the recall of more than 150,000 bottles in 2003.
In a report last February, the agency said drug counterfeiting is widespread outside the country, but its prevalence within the United States is not known.
Ulterior motives
Some groups wonder whether the FDA and drug companies have ulterior motives with the counterfeiting issue, which has grown in prominence as more Americans order less expensive drugs from Canada and other foreign countries.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, co-founder of consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen's Health Research Group, says congressional hearings two decades ago brought up the danger of counterfeit drugs. But only in the past few years has the FDA acted, at the same time questioning the safety of foreign drugs, he said.
"This is an issue that has been purposely confounded by the (Bush) administration with the issue of drug importation," Wolfe said.
source: http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040907/business/139018_Printer.shtml 7sep04
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