We could accept that if we would purchase medicines on the Internet, they could be fake. However, according to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) even prescribed medicines could be harmful counterfeits.

A new report shows that last year’s breach of the pharmaceutical supply chain in the UK has put the issue of parallel trade at the top of the agenda for the European Commission.

As more and more counterfeiters are penetrating the pharmaceutical supply chain, there is growing concern that NHS patients are at risk.

Drug counterfeiters have realised that there is a great deal more money to be made through the NHS supply chain, and the MHRA have reported five incidents in the past two years where counterfeit medicines have reached patients through high-street pharmacies.

Europe’s free trade policy, combined with the often large price differentials across member states, has driven parallel drug trade, a practice in which distributors absorb most of the profits at the expense of manufacturers. Aside from the lost revenues, manufacturers contend that parallel trade can lead to drug shortages in the export markets and increase the risk of counterfeit drug entry; a claim that now has some weight behind it following developments in the UK.

On Target Magazine writes that a number of factors have driven the rise of counterfeiting, including the growth in blockbuster drugs and the demand for lifestyle medicines. The prices of real drugs reflect the research and development costs, but counterfeiters can produce them much more cheaply.

The World Health Organisation writes that counterfeits – which have been found to be cut with substances including brick dust, chalk, paint and furniture polish – are notoriously difficult to detect with the untrained eye and even experts sometimes require full forensic science laboratory tests to determine whether a suspect product has been tampered with.