Inside Pfizer's Fight Against Counterfeit Drugs

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In the spring of 2011 an undercover agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security placed an order for some discount Viagra on hardtofindrx.com. The site promises low prices and fast delivery on drugs such as Klonopin and Valium, no prescription needed. About two weeks later, according to court documents, he got a package containing 67 blue, diamond-shaped pills. The return address read: B. Green, High Point, N.C.

Was it real? The best way for a federal agent to find out is to send it to Pfizer (PFE), the world’s largest drug company and the maker of Viagra. When the package arrived at Pfizer’s research and development campus in Groton, Conn., Brian Donnelly got to work.

Donnelly, 56, is director of Pfizer’s global security team in the Americas. A pharmacist by training with a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology, Donnelly is also a detective. For 21 years before joining Pfizer, he worked as a special agent for the FBI. Donnelly starts his tests in a brightly lit lab on the first floor of the research facility. On one side there’s a secure area surrounded by a metal enclosure the size of a walk-in closet. Inside the cage, Donnelly’s team of scientists slices up suspect drugs. They start by photographing a package’s exterior. Then they scrutinize everything from the markings on the blister packs down to the color of the casings and the chemistry of the powder within.

Packages of phony Pfizer products arrive several times a week. The samples are sent in by cops working counterfeit cases and customs agents trying to figure out what they’ve sequestered. Within days, Pfizer’s forensics team can give them answers. Bogus pills sometimes contain chalk, brick dust, paint, and even pesticides, says Pfizer Senior Scientist Amy Callanan. One notoriously repugnant batch of pills, originating in China and sold in South Korea, contained the remains of human fetuses. Sometimes the fakes actually work. Last year, Pfizer collected samples in Baltimore and Atlanta of “herbal” erectile dysfunction pills (with names like Stiff 4 Hours and Mojo Nights) sold over the counter at convenience stores and gas stations. Testing revealed that 81 percent of the “all natural” products contained either sildenafil citrate, the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in Viagra; tadalafil, the API in Cialis; or so-called designer drugs that are similar in chemical structure to the brand medications but untested in clinical trials. “You might be talking about ‘Stiff 4 a Fortnight,’ ” says John Thomas, a scientist on Pfizer’s forensics team.

Counterfeit drugs generated an estimated $75 billion in revenue in 2010, according to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Unlike fake sunglasses, fake drugs can kill their purchasers. Each year upwards of 100,000 people around the world may die from substandard and counterfeit medications, according to a recent estimate by Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa and Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute. To date, governments have struggled to safeguard the distribution of legitimate drugs and crack down on the fakes. In lieu of effective public policy, the pharmaceutical industry has chosen to fight back in private.

Donnelly’s team noticed something about the package from North Carolina. The name of the sender, “B. Green,” looked familiar. Sure enough, it matched an alias that had turned up before in a handful of investigations. The team sent a detailed report back to the feds. The Viagra pills they’d purchased from hardtofindrx.com were counterfeits. Donnelly informed the agents that his team had also received packages of pseudo-Viagra from B. Green.

Shortly after, according to court documents, the federal agents asked postal service investigators to look for any archival surveillance footage that might exist capturing “B. Green” mailing the packages. Within weeks, USPS officials came back with images of a suspect: a white male, about six feet tall, parking a red Ford F-150 pickup truck outside a post office in the small town of Trinity, N.C. 

Within the pharmaceutical security trade, Pfizer has a reputation for fielding a brawny squad, though the company won’t say how many detectives like Donnelly it employs. Every major drugmaker has its own such team, stocked with former law enforcement agents. The detectives routinely share information across corporate boundaries. They are an oasis of cooperation in a competitive industry. Donnelly collaborates on a regular basis with his counterpart at Eli Lilly (which sells Cialis), who also previously worked at the FBI. “We’re going after the same people,” says Donnelly.

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By Felix Gillette

Fuente Original: http://www.businessweek.com