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RIA Novosti
October 9, 2001

Draft Laws With More Austere Measures to Fight Against Counterfeit Drugs Will Be Submitted to the State Duma in November

By Galina Baryshnikova

Deputy Minister of Health Anton Katlinsky announced Tuesday that draft laws with more austere measures to fight against counterfeit drugs would be submitted to the State Duma in November.

Speaking at an international conference devoted to the fight against counterfeit drugs in Russia, Katlinsky noted that the amendments to the Federal Law "On Medicines", the "Code On Administrative Law Violations" and the " RF Criminal Code" had already been worked out.

Katlinsky added that the Ministry of Health proposed to refuse complete certification of drugs and form the permanent Federal Pharmaceutical Inspection to conduct spot checks of drugs and confirm their production quality.

According to the Deputy Minister of Health, twenty-five criminal cases for counterfeiting drugs in Russia have already been initiated. However, none of these cases was brought to court because of the lack of a legal basis. In any case, the problem of counterfeit drugs exists all over the world. For instance, counterfeit drugs capture from 5% to 8% of the U.S. pharmaceutical market.

Counterfeit drugs emerged in Russia in 1997. According to Katlinsky, counterfeit drugs today make up as much as 7% of the Russian pharmaceutical market - 67% of them are counterfeits of Russian medicines. Damage to health from these medicines can be quite serious, and can even lead to death, he emphasized.