sanofi-aventis sets up new lab to fight counterfeiters

sanofi-aventis has officially opened its Central Anti-Counterfeit Laboratory at the Tours pharmaceutical plant in the Department of Indre-et-Loire, France.

The Central Anti-Counterfeit Laboratory is an integral part of the sanofi-aventis Group's initiative against counterfeiting.

The lab, with its team of experts and state-of-the-art equipment, has a three-fold remit:

• - to conduct direct examinations of packaging items and leaflets as well as definitive chemical tests on suspect samples of commonly counterfeited products
• - to develop test methods and distribute them globally in order to allow any industrial plant in the world to inspect and test, with the same criteria, the suspect products corresponding to those manufactured by sanofi-aventis
• - to centralise "Identity Cards" for the counterfeit drugs found, in a single, central data base, to make it possible to compare different types of counterfeit.

The lab is a key tool at the disposal of the regulatory agencies, the police and the customs as well, of course, as the courts in France and in any other country involved.

Aware of the threat to public health posed by counterfeit drugs, the sanofi-aventis Group is making a solid commitment to combating this curse by gathering as much information and evidence as possible to help the authorities to fight efficiently against this dangerous, criminal enterprise.

Substantial human and material resources are being committed to the project and all the group's divisions are being mobilised. And after just over two years, the results are already concrete: in 2007, more than 2.5 million doses of counterfeited sanofi-aventis products were discovered throughout the world.

Confronted with the sophisticated arsenal at the disposal of drug counterfeiters, chairman of sanofi-aventis. Jean-Francois Dehecq advocates a zero-tolerance policy.

"We have for too long a time under-estimated the problem of drug counterfeitingwhat used to be a cottage industry is today a fully-fledged industrial process," he said.

"Given the urgency of the situation, we have to be intransigent, notably on three specific issues: enhancing the efficacy of international police enquiries; updating the penal code which is currently insufficiently dissuasive; and regulating drug distribution networks, especially those which can be exploited to promote counterfeit drugs," he added.

In 2006, counterfeit drugs accounted for more than 10% of the global pharmaceutical market, i.e. about 45 billion euros¹. In some countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, up to 30% of the drugs on the market may be counterfeit². Developed countries are also affected with counterfeit products having invaded the regular distribution networks. The statistics point to a sharp rise in the rate of confiscation of counterfeit drugs by European customs services with over four million boxes of counterfeit drugs impounded at borders in 2007, an increase of 51% over 2006³ and the rate of confiscation rose by 384% between 2005 and 2006⁴.

The Tours pharmaceutical plant is mainly devoted to the production and packaging of solid, oral products including a number of the Group's most important drugs.