IOM Report Calls For Tracking System To Fight Counterfeit Drug Trade

The AP (2/14, Neergaard) reports that the Institute of Medicine on Wednesday released a report that concludes, tackling the “problem of fake drugs will require creating a national drug-tracking system.” The IOM’s report calling “for putting medications through a chain of custody like US courts require for evidence in a trial comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin [bevacizumab] that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.”

NPR (2/13, Knox) in its “Shots” blog reports that the “National Academies of Science, of which the IOM is part, was commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration to look at how to protect people against fake and substandard drugs.” According to the report, the problem “extends to more than 120 countries…and has done incalculable damage to efforts to control tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS and other diseases.”
The Wall Street Journal (2/14) “Corporate Intelligence” notes that the IOM report also emphasized that oversight of prescription drug wholesalers needs to be strengthened.

AFP (2/14, Santini) adds that FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg “commended the report” and the agency is already implementing many of its suggestions. “To meet the challenges of today’s global marketplace, the FDA is transforming from a predominantly domestically focused agency to one that is fully prepared to help ensure product safety and quality within a globalized world,” Dr. Hamburg said in a statement.

However, according to The Hill (2/14, Wilson) “Regwatch” blog, “Members of Congress want to create legislation to increase the crackdown and oversight effort.” Rep. Henry Waxman (R-CA), the “ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee” said “I hope we can pass a law at the federal level that provides the same level of protection as California’s model legislation,” which requires “individual units of drugs to be accounted for at each step along the supply chain.”

Modern Healthcare (2/13, Zigmond, Subscription Publication), HealthDay (2/14, Gardner) and MedPage Today (2/14, Pittman) also cover the reports, which is titled, “Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs.”