Prof Shaohong Jin

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What else is being done in developing countries to protect vulnerable people from counterfeit drugs?

One very impressive, charitable health project reaching out to developing countries and making it possible to identify counterfeit drugs quickly and cheaply is the mobile compact laboratory GPHF-Minilab®.

The GPHF-Minilab® is capable of identifying counterfeit or low-quality drugs with simple test methods that are also reliable in tropical countries and falls under the remit of the Global Pharma Health Fund e.V. (GPHF), which is supported exclusively by Merck. Since its inauguration in July 2007, more than 350 laboratory units have been deployed in more than 70 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia; countries especially affected by counterfeit drugs and where effective drug control is often lacking.

Click here to find out more about counterfeit drugs and the GPHF-Minilab®

Practical steps to stop counterfeiting - Friday, January 14, 2011

With counterfeit medicines increasingly appearing in legitimate supply chains and even in the clinical stages of product development, a recent white paper has outlined practical steps that may help companies address the issue of counterfeits and diverted products.

Generic substitution raises counterfeit medicine fears, says survey - Monday, January 03, 2011

A study looking at generic substitution of medicines has found an alarming level of confusion between generic and counterfeit drugs, and raises fears that this may affect adherence to therapy.

HK plans to 'name and shame' fake-drug dealers - Thursday, December 30, 2010

HONG Kong is launching a 'name and shame' campaign against retailers caught selling counterfeit medicine, as the city steps up its crackdown on the mushrooming illicit trade.

NAFDAC leading war on drug counterfeiting in the world - Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Director-general of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii, has said that NAFDAC is a leader in the war against drug counterfeing in the world

China jails eight for selling fake rabies vaccine - Monday, December 20, 2010

China's state news agency says eight people have been sentenced to prison terms of up to two-and-a-half years for selling fake rabies vaccines that contributed to the death of one boy.

Counterfeit and substandard drugs are steadily growing into a massive global problem but, as is often the case, poor people in rural areas are left particularly vulnerable.

In a bid to stem the flow of counterfeit drugs in China, one country facing enormous problems with counterfeits of all kinds, and to reach out to people in outlying areas, Professor Shaohong Jin and his team operate a fleet of mobile units for testing drugs. These 'mini-labs' travel through the Chinese countryside testing drugs with state-of-the-art equipment and helping to protect the health of people who are sometimes in great need.

Professor Jin gave No to Fakes some background to this groundbreaking project and insight into how the team operates.

What gave you the idea of setting up a fleet of vans as minilabs to travel around China to test medicines?

Counterfeit medicines are a major public health risk for all communities. The phenomenon has grown in recent years due to counterfeiting methods becoming more sophisticated and counterfeit products looking so similar to the genuine product that they deceive health professionals as well as patients. Eliminating them is a considerable public health challenge. In China, as everywhere in the world, counterfeit medicines and substandard drugs are mainly occurring in the rural areas where drug administration is weak since the institutes for drug quality control are located in urban areas. In order to combat the counterfeits and to protect the health of people living in rural areas, under the instruction of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), the National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products (NICPBP) developed mobile labs for field testing.

How many vans and people do you now have on your team?

We now have nearly 400 mobile labs up and running in China. There are usually two to four people working in the van. By the end of 2009 over 310,000 had been visited and about one million batches of samples had been screened.

What role does technology play in addressing the issue of counterfeit medicines in China?

The scientific equipment in a mobile lab includes an NIR (near-infrared) spectrometer, TLC (Thin-Layer Chromotography) equipment, colorimeter, digital photography, visible microscopy and various test kits for specific chemical reactions. The main screening tool in the mobile lab is based on an NIR spectrometer and a pre-developed, standard library of NIR spectra of selected, commonly used pharmaceutical products in China.

And, the all-important question really, do you think this initiative is having an impact?

Yes, I do believe we are having an impact. The mobile labs have played a very important role in some emergency response situations such as the Wuncui earthquake disaster in May 2008, when all district drug control labs were destroyed. One key sign that the programme has been deemed a success is that it is being expanded.

What are the future plans for the programme?

As I mentioned earlier, the programme is to be expanded into the development of a second generation of mobile laboratories, which is currently being developed. This second generation of minilabs will incorporate a patented green High-Performance Liquid Chromotography (HPLC) system that is suitable for mobile operation. The key to this new HPLC system is that the solvents are close-loop recycled inside the van. And the advantage of implementing the HPLC system in the mobile lab is that if a drug product is suspected as counterfeit by an NIR screening method then an on-site confirmation can be performed by HPLC immediately in the van.

Prof. Shaohong Jin received a BS in Medicinal Chemistry from Beijing Medical College in 1970. From 1980 to 1982 he was an invited Visiting Scholar engaged in quality control of antibiotics at the Bureau of Drug Research, Canadian Health Protection Branch (HPB). During the 1990s he spent two-and-half years as a Senior Visiting Scholar for the study of the mechanism of bacteria resistance at Istituto Superiore di Sanità Italy.

From 1996 to 2009 Prof. Jin was the Deputy Director of National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products. He was former Chief of Division of Antibiotics of NICPBP for over 10 years. He is the Adjunct Professor of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and China Pharmaceutical University.

Professor Jin is a member of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia Committee and Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Antibiotics, a member of China National Accreditation Board for Laboratories. He is also a member of WHO Expert Advisory Panel on the International Pharmacopoeia and Pharmaceutical Preparations. In 2005 he was elected as a member of the Reference Standards Expert Committee of United States Pharmacopoeia (USP).

For the past 40 years, his research interests have focused on safety evaluation and quality control of pharmaceutical products. Prof. Jin has published over 150 scientific papers and received more than 10 National Awards for Development of Science and Technology.