Ensuring High-Quality Medicine in a World of Counterfeit

Marine Durand, Senior Program Manager of Partnerships at The Max Foundation, shared on LinkedIn:

“Ensuring High-Quality Medicine in a World of Counterfeit

In low-and-middle income countries (LMICs), 1 in 10 medications are fake or substandard. Cancer medications, whether branded or generic, are prime target for counterfeiters due to their high cost, long-term and type of treatment. These counterfeit medicines contribute to high mortality and morbidity rates and massive economic losses for the public and private sectors in LMICs, where the need for effective treatments is urgent.

People diagnosed with cancer in LMICs need access to high quality cancer medicines. On average, 70% of newly diagnosed cancer cases occur in LMICs, where the survival rate in 30 to 50 percent lower than in high income countries. In addition to socio economic disparities and cultural and ethnical barriers, most people living is LMICs do not have access to affordable health care allowing for proper screening, diagnostic and treatment.

Screening rates are low and most of the cancers are diagnosed at a much later stage, requiring more aggressive, prolonged, and often expensive treatments. A lack of capacity and resources in LMICs can mean inadequate forecasting, procurement, distribution, surveillance and quality control. This environment enables a lucrative counterfeit industry to prey on patients.

Two other factors have accelerated this growing market. COVID-19 boosted the illegal market for drugs by contributing to a shortage of medicines and disruption of global supply chains. Additionally, the growing use of internet has enabled consumer to directly buy medicines, bypassing quality checkpoints and making it easier for counterfeit drugs to reach individuals.

With any smart phone, you can now buy most medications online and the difference between a legitimate online pharmacy and an illegal one is easy for consumer to determine. These issues go to show that the fight against fake medicine is complex, and one that requires coordination between a variety of industries and stakeholders.

We all have a role to play. That’s why it’s important to support organizations working to provide access to high-quality treatment in LMICs. Together with our partners, The Max Foundation (Max) work to ensure that we have quality medicine delivered to patients around the world. At Max, we foster strategic and operational excellence from the design to the implementation to the evaluation of our programs.

Thorough assessments of physicians, institutions and third-party logistics are conducted before we form any potential partnership. Our partners provide first-rate quality products that are tracked from their warehouse through our network of institutions and physicians. As a member of Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD), we follow international guidelines on governance, quality and logistics.

Our teams make sure the drugs we are sending are adequate with a proper shelf life. Stability data and storage information are requested for each donated drug. Our Patient Access Tracking System (PATS) allows us to track every batch of medicine from our pharma partner to each individual patient.

We have relevant Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in place for recalls, deviation, product complaints, temperature excursion, adverse event reporting etc. Regular training and refreshers are conducted on pertinent SOPs, including donor specific training. Our colleagues periodically carry out mock exercises on different SOPs to make sure we are all prepared and ready.

Our goal, as part of our patient-centered model, is to make sure that each patient has access to high quality medicine. We do all of this because of our mission to accelerate health equity. Patients deserve access to high-quality treatment, no matter where they live. We hope our efforts can provide a model for strengthening health systems and protect patients from counterfeit medicines.” – Marine Durand/LinkedIn

Substandard Cisplatin Found While Screening the Quality of Anticancer Drugs From Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Autors: Madeline S. Eberle, Ayenew Ashenef, Heran Gerba, Patrick J. Loehrer, Sr, Marya Lieberman,

Marine Durand commented:

“Counterfeit cancer drugs pose a deadly crisis to people in low- and middle-income countries. Support The Max Foundation to ensure people have access to quality medications they desperately need.” – Marine Durand/LinkedIn

The Max Foundation shared a post by Marine Durand, on LinkedIn, adding:

“Well-researched piece by our Senior Program Manager, Marine Durand, who wrote, ‘Our goal, as part of our patient-centered model, is to make sure that each patient has access to high quality medicine. We do all of this because of our mission to accelerate health equity. Patients deserve access to high-quality treatment, no matter where they live. We hope our efforts can provide a model for strengthening health systems and protect patients from counterfeit medicines.” – The Max Foundation/LinkedIn