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Of fake and counterfeit
drugs
The demand for Cialis
has spawned spurious peddlers.
Demands for popular products have always encouraged
counterfeit and fake product manufacturer’s world
over. Pharmaceuticals perhaps present the most lucrative
market as the demand for formulations is worldwide.
The World Health Organization reports, though it looks
too conservative, that counterfeit drugs marketed across
the world fall in the range of 10%. Its estimate about
many developing countries registering a figure as high
as 50% however may not be too short of the actual.
Korea has often come under the spotlight
for both good and the bad reasons. First the good one
- the country enjoys the tenth largest market in the
world at more than $10 billion. For over more than one
and a half decade now pharmaceutical majors from the
US and Europe have set their manufacturing base here.
Needless to mention the country also offers a thriving
pitch for the fake and counterfeit peddlers.
US based Eli Lilly & Company’s
head Arthur J. Katsanos admits that counterfeit and
fake formulations are hard to lay a seize on. And the
most worrying part of it is that the business in the
spurious pharmaceuticals is not only booming but booming
in leaps and bounds.
Korea mainly is a market for generics.
Most of these generic drugs have expired patents. About
quite sometime back Korean police raided over 100 Seoul
based pharmacies. And to the surprise of many and the
delight of many more, the catch was fake Cialis. It
was not a small seize. In the raid close to 150 million
pills were uncovered.
Now that gave some an altogether different
idea as reported in a Korean newspaper. “Going
by the raid and the amount of Cialis seized, it gives
a signal to the world that the favourite pastime for
Koreans is sexual
intercourse”, quipped a chemist in Seoul.
The Erectile
Dysfunction Drug is quite often taken for fun rather
than for need. Effortless availability of drugs like
Cialis online makes the misusage more rampant.
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