# Fake Avastin's path to US traced to Egypt



## hhaddad (Apr 14, 2010)

NEW YORK/COPENHAGEN — The trail of fake versions of the multibillion-dollar cancer drug Avastin that reached southern California has been traced as far away as Egypt in an investigation by international health regulators.
Danish health authorities first became suspicious about potentially bogus Avastin in December after a legitimate drug distributor in that country sounded the alarm, a spokesman for the Danish Medicines Agency told Reuters on Thursday.
"A Swiss company bought it from Egypt, a Danish company bought it from the Swiss company, and sold it on to a British company," Danish Medicines Agency spokesman Christian Howard-Jessen said. He would not name any of the companies involved or provide further details about the phony drug's origins.
"The Danish company was aware that there was something wrong with it," Howard-Jessen said. "They did what they were supposed to do, tell us about it. The product was never in Denmark, it was always en route from one place to another."
Danish regulators informed their British counterparts, who in turn found that some of the drug had already been shipped to the United States. British authorities said they then informed Swiss drugmaker Roche, which gets about US$6 billion a year from Avastin sales globally, and the US Food and Drug Administration.
The chase after phony Avastin highlights the growing complexity of the global drug supply chain, including both legitimate and counterfeit medicines, and how regulators will be hard-pressed to address potential safety breaches.
"We've known counterfeit products for a long time, and now they are appearing in the official chain of supply and then they are hard to avoid," Howard-Jessen said.
With the drug industry increasingly global, medicines can pass through many hands and nations before reaching patients. The source ingredients for a majority of US drugs come from overseas, further complicating the ability of domestic regulators to track them.
In one recent case that raised major fears over the safety of the drug supply, tainted versions of Baxter International Inc's blood thinner heparin that reached the US market four years ago were traced to ingredients culled from pig farms in China. Just last week, the FDA issued its recommendations for ensuring safe production of that drug.
Cardinal Health Inc, one of the three biggest authorized distributors of Avastin in the United States, said it will only purchase the drug from the manufacturer.
"That's our general approach to protecting supply chain integrity and guarding against counterfeit medicines," a Cardinal spokeswoman said. "We're reminding customers that that's the best way of protecting them from receiving adulterated or counterfit medicines."


See the rest at Fake Avastin's path to US traced to Egypt | Egypt Independent


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## aykalam (Apr 12, 2010)

*Egyptian middleman bought fake Avastin from Turkey*

Fake versions of the multibillion-dollar cancer drug Avastin were purchased in Turkey before being traded by middlemen across the Middle East and Europe to the United States, an Egyptian businessman involved said on Tuesday.

Milad Kamal Ayad, who works on commission for Egyptian firm SAWA, told Reuters he sourced 167 packets of Avastin from Turkey, via a Syrian businessman also based in Egypt, for Swiss-based Hadicon AG.

The drug, found to be counterfeit, eventually reached clinics in California, Texas and Illinois. It contained no life extending medicine or any other biotech drug, Roche said on Monday, but instead contained salt, starch and a variety of chemicals.

The case involving Roche's top-selling cancer treatments has underscored how even expensive injectable medicines, not just pills like Viagra and Lipitor, are at risk from criminal counterfeiters.

It also shows how difficult it is to trace the source of such counterfeits as they pass from one supplier to another.

"Via SAWA, I bought these items from a Syrian. Of course, I didn't know they were counterfeit copies," Ayad said, speaking in a meeting at the Reuters bureau in Cairo where he described the deal.

Egyptian middleman bought fake Avastin from Turkey - AlertNet

the plot thickens...


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