Fake drugs and EU parallel trade: "no link"

"To date, there has not been a single case of counterfeit drugs in Europe which have entered the supply chain via parallel trade," according to Richard Freudeberg, secretary general of the British Association of European Pharmaceutical Distributors, writing in the Baltimore Sun, USA-based newspaper.

Mr Freudenberg was responding to an opinion column published in the same newspaper on August 15 by Peter Pitts, director of the New York, USA, headquartered think-tank, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, who had described counterfeit drug trafficking as "health care terrorism."

Although Mr Freudenberg agrees that the drug industry and health care officials are right to be concerned about the global risk of fake drugs, he writes: "they are looking in the wrong place when they put the spotlight on European parallel distributors, who provide valuable service to patients and national health care systems by providing safe and more affordable accesss to innovative branded medicines." He added that European Union parallel traders are "subject to strict national and European regulations," including "meticulous batch records of all sales and purchases."