OECD and EUIPO Publish Joint Report on Trade in Counterfeit Pharmaceutical Products - Interpol Also Active
- 30/03/2020
- Articles
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published on 23 March 2020 a joint report on trade in counterfeit pharmaceutical products (see, first attachment – the Illicit Trade Report). The Illicit Trade Report covers for the period 2014-2016 illicit traded pharmaceuticals that infringe trade mark rights. In 2016 alone, that trade was worth USD 4.4 billion. By contrast, the Illicit Trade Report does not address the large volume of domestically produced and consumed illicit pharmaceuticals which is a further illustration of the scale of the problem.
The Illicit Trade Report points out that the cost to society of this criminal activity is enormous and translates in lost lives, damage to health, lost revenue for governments, and loss of sales and damage to the reputation of legitimate producers (most of them based in the US, the EU and Switzerland).
The principal provenance economies for counterfeit medicines, including both producers and transit territories, are China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. The main affected categories of medicines include antibiotics, lifestyle medicines and painkillers but there is also a significant illicit trade in medicines for the treatment of heart disease, HIV, malaria and diabetes. Additionally, as the results of operation Pangea XIII, the latest Interpol operation to combat counterfeit medicines, indicates, the recent focus of criminal activity in this area is medication and medical devices supposedly designed to tackle Covid-19 (see, Interpol press release of 19 March 2020, second attachment).
The Illicit Trade Report highlights the challenges for stakeholders in concentrating on the continued activity of law enforcement agencies, the redoubling of efforts to tackle illicit trade via postal and express mail services, and the creation of programmes that increase the awareness of the dangers resulting from relying on unregulated sales channels.
