IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERIC ANALYTICAL METHODS TO FIGHT AGAINST COUNTERFEIT MEDICINES

Counterfeit of medicines are highly problematic throughout developing countries because of the direct threat they pose to the lives of patients and their contribution to the development of drug-resistant strains in particular for killing diseases such as malaria, infections, etc … A picture of results published from a large scale study carried out by USP-USAID-WHO was challenging [1] : one third of antimalarial medicines sampled in three African nations were found to be substandard or counterfeit. Another study reported unimaginable proportions rising up to 80 % of counterfeit. Besides the public health consequences, such medicines have also economical consequences and negative reputation on the pharmaceutical industries. However, health authorities at national, regional and international levels are still trying to fight against this scourge by implementing several strategies that needs to be reinforced through adequate analytical methods for quality control. It is important that these analytical methods being generic, affordable financially, fast and having specific detection. In this context, a strategy focused on two axes is presented: At first, generic analytical methods were developed by means of experimental design combined with Design Space optimisation strategy [2] in order to allow detecting and tracing simultaneously several substance