For a long time, scientists have been committed to developing a drug detection technology with high efficiency and low cost. As an emeritus professor of drug analysis at the University of London School of Pharmacy, Tony Moffat has written extensively on quality control of prescription drugs, testing of stimulants and cannabis. Today, with his deep expertise, Professor Moffat has successfully developed a new technology for rapid detection of counterfeit drugs.
Compared with other countries, the problem of counterfeit drugs is not serious in the UK. Since 80% of prescription drugs are freely available through the National Health Service (NHS), counterfeiting lacks a market in the UK. However, according to Professor Moffat's introduction, in the past three or four years, at least five incidents have shown that counterfeit drugs have penetrated the legal supply chain.
The motive for counterfeiting is nothing more than the misappropriation of other people's brands. Counterfeiters always disregard quality control regulations, purchase cheap and unqualified materials, or cut corners to reduce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). Counterfeit medicines not only endanger the health of patients, but also affect the income of pharmaceutical companies and reduce capital investment in research and development of new medicines. At present, counterfeit drugs have accounted for one-tenth of the total amount of drugs on the world market, and one-third of them appear in developing countries.
However, mere observation of the packaging or the shape of the tablet is not enough to distinguish the authenticity of the medicine. Counterfeit medicines are not useless. At least some fake medicines in Africa are made from pure milk powder. Moffat pointed out that if the counterfeit tablets sold contain a small amount of active medicinal ingredients, then people are likely to buy them again.
In fact, as early as several years ago, researchers have successfully developed techniques for identifying counterfeit drugs, but the premise is that the appraiser must have a well-equipped laboratory in order to use high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and near infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) equipment. Moffat said his goal is to further improve quality inspection technology to make on-site inspection possible. -This means that testing will be transferred from the laboratory to stores, wholesalers, hospitals and pharmacies. Moffat is well aware of the two technologies mentioned above, but he prefers NIRS because it is fast and harmless and is an ideal detection tool. NIRS measures the absorption of infrared light by suspicious drugs to produce absorption spectra or chemical spectra of active pharmaceutical ingredients and inactive pharmaceutical ingredients, respectively.
Moffat ’s work is nothing more than buying a portable (loadable on a computer) small NIRS instrument, writing relevant software, and creating a personalized sample set for testing drugs. In fact, the biggest difficulty he encountered was how to find fake drugs to verify the effectiveness of this technology.
After several unsuccessful returns, Moffat chose an irregular shopping website to start. He bought nine pills for treating erectile dysfunction online, four of which were certified as counterfeit products. He warned that 50% of products on similar websites are counterfeit.
Since then, Moffat has obtained counterfeit drugs for testing through the Korean Food and Drugs Agency, and published the test results in the journal Near Infrared Spectroscopy: After the NIRS instrument is connected to the computer Data analysis can be carried out to identify the authenticity of medicines and remind people to avoid potential problems. NIRS is extremely sensitive, and data can be read directly through transparent packaging. Moffat pointed out that the operating cost of this new scanning technology is extremely low. But its advanced point is that it can be carried around and tested on the spot without sending samples to the laboratory.
During the study, Moffat also took the opportunity to observe various counterfeiting methods. Simply project the near-infrared beam onto the tablet to read the individual components of the drug. For example, some counterfeit Cialis tablets lack an active medicinal ingredient called tadalafil; instead, they contain the active ingredient of Viagra, sildenafil. This situation is common.
At present, a research team headed by Dr Paul Newton of the Centre for Tropical Medicine at Oxford University has launched an international epidemic on counterfeit artesunate (artesunate 'an anti-malarial drug) The results of the medical investigations directly led to the arrest of several counterfeiters by the Chinese government. Experiments show that the counterfeit medicine contains very few active medicinal ingredients, or even zero, and has no effect on malaria at all. In this regard, Dr. Newton believes that the biggest advantage of portable NIRS instruments is that they can be tested on the spot without waiting for the experimental results. Its performance is not inferior to other high-tech, but the cost is much lower than the former, so it is favored by inspection personnel.
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