Falsified Medicines in India

Every country is the victim of falsified and substandard drugs, which result in life threatening issues, fiscal loss to consumer and manufacturer and loss in trust on the healthcare system. Poor quality drug or substandard product encounters a severe issue for the Indian healthcare system and it cannot be ignored. Each year, around 100,000 people lose their lives either because they’re poisoned by inappropriate ingredients in falsified drugs or because the falsified drug doesn’t help to recover their illness. Limited access to the drug store, medical care, effective treatments, and the common practice of self-medication are the main drivers of the availability of falsified and substandard drugs across the country.

As per the World Health Organization (WHO) recent report, one out of five drugs made in India are fake and the biggest center of fake medicines is the national capital region (NCR), which includes Delhi and its suburbs of Noida, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, and Sonepat. Estimates indicate that the fake medicines constitute nearly one-third of all drugs sold in NCR.

A big portion of India's domestic drug market constitutes of substandard medicines, and it is one of the top growing markets in the country. A recent ASSOCHAM report says that if the fake drugs market grows at the current rate of 25%, it will cross US$ 10 billion mark by 2017.

The Indian Government and pharmaceutical regulatory system has taken a number of preventive steps to fight against the poor quality drugs for protecting and promoting the public health in the country. The Food and Drug Administration conducted series of raids to uncover these falsified and substandard drugs. These raids yielded large quantities of substandard medicines.

In light of the magnitude of the fake drug problem in India and worldwide, one must visit a health expert to look up the drug’s description and appearance, to find out whether the medicine is genuine or not.

PSM-India is concerned about the consequences of poor quality drugs on the public health and thus, for minimizing spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/fake drugs or not of standard quality drugs have taken several preventive measures to check the prevalence of fake drugs.