Millions of fraud with HIV drugs

Procuratorate investigates millions of HIV drug frauds

24/02/2011

According to media reports, fraud involving HIV medicines has caused tens of millions of dollars in financial damages. Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and prosecutors investigate against several pharmaceutical wholesalers who thought for patients in Africa, repackaged subsidized drugs and have illegally brought to the German market.

Accused drug wholesalers face up to 10 years imprisonment
Nationwide, various pharmaceutical wholesalers have apparently umetikettiert large quantities of subsidized drugs produced for needy patients in South Africa, reimported to Germany and settled here with significant profits at the regular prices, reported NDR info. The prosecutors Flensburg, Trier and Lübeck have taken up the investigation against several pharmaceutical wholesalers and also the BKA was turned on. According to NDR info, the HIV preparations were introduced as so-called bulk goods (bulk goods without packaging, leaflet or guarantee) in boxes and sacks full of individual tablets illegally from South Africa via Belgium and Switzerland to Germany. Subsequently, the subsidized HIV drugs were sold in this country with considerable profits, said the prosecutor Flensburg the charge to the pharmaceutical wholesalers. Thus, the accused not only violated the drug law, but threatened the alleged perpetrators 3 months to 10 years imprisonment for commercial fraud, should the suspicion confirm, the prosecutor continued. „Since other countries are involved with South Africa, Switzerland and Belgium, this procedure is certainly among our largest“, emphasized Rüdiger Meienburg, Senior Attorney General in Flensburg.

Millions of harm from illegally sold HIV medications
The AOK Lower Saxony estimates the damage that could have been caused by the illegally sold HIV preparations alone in their area of ​​responsibility to at least tens of millions. The spokesman of the Lower Saxony AOK, Oliver Giebel, told NDR info a similar charge as the prosecutor: „The drugs were provided by aid organizations for the treatment of HIV patients in South Africa. The wholesalers brought the preparations to Germany, although they were not allowed here.“ As the radio station reported, the accused pharmaceutical wholesalers have thereby made a significant profit with the illegally distributed HIV drugs - one of the defendants alone had posted six million euros in sales.

Accused pharmaceutical wholesalers behave reprehensibly
Experts such as Prof. Dr. med. Gerd Glaeske from the Center for Social Policy - Health Economics, Health Policy and Health Services Research - the University of Bremen condemned the alleged fraud and criticized the behavior of the pharmaceutical wholesalers represented by the prosecutor as „reprehensible“. Not only did it cause considerable financial damage in the German health care system, but the patients, who urgently needed HIV medication in South Africa, apparently never received it. „Not only are wholesalers enriched with criminal energy here, but also people are harmed who are deprived of these medicines,“ so the reproach of Prof. dr. Gerd Glaeske.

Million fraud with HIV drugs discovered in Delmenhorst
According to the radio station, the alleged millions of frauds were discovered in August 2009 when a HIV patient in a Delmenhorst pharmacy noticed that there were no tablets in an undamaged clear packaging of the HIV medication. The subsequent investigations by the Munich manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have shown that both the packaging and the leaflet and the blister (transparent packaging of the tablets) were forged. For safety's sake, GSK has withdrawn the relevant batch from the market. In a similar case, several batches of an HIV drug were also recalled at the pharmaceutical manufacturer Boehringer-Ingelheim between 2009 and 2010. The investigations subsequently initiated led to the above-mentioned suspicion that several pharmaceutical wholesalers have illegally sold subsidized HIV preparations in this country. According to the findings to date, there was no direct danger to the patients - the effectiveness of the drugs was not impaired, the pharmaceutical manufacturers report. However, the investigation is still ongoing and it can not yet be said with complete certainty whether the preparations may have been impaired during transport, for example due to a disruption of the cold chain in their quality. In addition, due to the lack of packaging so far is incomprehensible as it looks with excess of the expiration date.

Millennium goal: supply of affordable HIV medicines
Supplying needy HIV patients in developing countries with much-needed medicines at affordable prices is one of the key goals of international community health policy. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, for example, unambiguously state that the fight against HIV / AIDS, malaria and other serious diseases is a clear goal for the international community, and encourage pharmaceutical companies to work together to provide urgent access to urgent needs in developing countries needed medicines at affordable prices. Not least because of concerns that counterfeiters may be ignoring patent protection for the production of low-cost HIV medicines, pharmaceutical companies have agreed to distribute locally subsidized medicines to the needy through aid organizations. But for unscrupulous pharmaceutical wholesalers, apparently offered a new business branch. Because the price range between the subsidized medicines and the products distributed here in Germany is enormous. According to public prosecutors, the accused drug wholesalers apparently thought so and started reimporting the cheaper products in their very own way. (Fp)

Image: Benjamin Klack