The worldwide pharmaceutical industry topped $1 trillion in 2014 for the first time and continues to grow. In 2016, $1.105.2 trillion were sold. While North America counts for the majority of those revenues, the China, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and France are all growing sectors, as well. The United States alone holds over 45% of the global market.
New York City-based global pharmaceutical company Pfizer is the world’s largest and generated $52.8 billion in sales in 2016 from pharmaceutical sales alone. The other major players in the United States are Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co.. In Europe, the “big five” are Novartis and Roche of Switzerland, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca in the UK, and Sanofi in France.
It is important to understand the overall picture of pharmaceutical sales and revenue in the world, in order to see the magnitude of the problem of counterfeit medications.
According to the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA), counterfeit medication is fake drugs. It could either be contaminated with another ingredient, contain the wrong ingredients, be the wrong dosage of the correct ingredients, or have no active ingredients at all (a placebo). Counterfeit drugs are completely illegal and can be very harmful to your health. The FDA says that they take “all reports of suspect counterfeits seriously and, in order to combat counterfeit medicines, is working with other agencies and the private sector to help protect the nation’s drug supply from the threat of counterfeits.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is one of the world’s largest professional services networks and is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. They do everything from tax and audits, private company services, consulting, risk assurance, cybersecurity, government services, and forensics, and employ almost 250,000 people worldwide in 158 countries. Strategy&
is the global strategy consulting team at PwC, made up of practical strategists committed to helping you and your company take essential advantages in today’s competitive markets.
Strategy& and PwC regularly publish Strategy + Business, a digital magazine covering business strategies and other related topics. In June 2017, they published a study called “Fighting Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals: New Defenses for an Underestimated – and Growing – Menace” written by Peter Behner, Dr. Marie-Lyn Hecht, Dr. Fabian Wahl.
In this report, they explicitly state, “From falsified Lipitor tablets to imitation Viagra and Cialis capsules, counterfeit pharmaceuticals are a €188 billion (US$200 billion) annual business, making them the largest segment of the €1.6 trillion in fraudulent goods sold worldwide every year.” The second largest segment of the counterfeit goods market is knockoff electronics.
In even what are considered the most secure markets for pharmaceuticals, such as the United States, at least 1% of all medications in circulation today are counterfeit. This is affecting people in staggering numbers, keeping cancer and HIV patients from getting their necessary, life-saving medications. In less secure countries like Africa, that number can be as high as 70% of all medications being fake. In those developing nations, the already high cost of medications make it a very lucrative play for counterfeiters but are affecting millions of people. Africa specifically has a population of about 1.216 billion, which makes up 70% of their population a whopping 851,200,000 people being hurt by people counterfeiting medications for profits!
There are over 1 million deaths per year due to counterfeit medications.
At IDLogiq, our mission is to fight against fake. We are using blockchain-powered technology, where data becomes almost unchangeable and unhackable to track and trace medications through their entire supply chain to prevent penetration and tampering.
We offer patented, secure, state-of-the-art technology solutions for supply chain security, brand protection, business intelligence, and authentication and validation in real time.
Here at IDLogiq, we want you to be informed and educated about this market and we will be writing and releasing news, information, and solutions for free, global consumption.
