A RECENT HEADLINE in a major United States business publication may have sent shivers up and down the spines of executives of some offshore firms in Barbados.
“Drug companies use cyber detectives to troll the dark Net for fake medicines,” was the way Bloomberg Business Week drew attention to an investigative story about the dark side of the Internet: the peddling of counterfeit drugs that offer treatment for everything from cancer, diabetes, and heart disease to erectile dysfunction.
Although Barbados escaped scrutiny in the latest published piece, the Caribbean country wasn’t so fortunate in August when US federal prosecutors in Montana unsealed an indictment that charged Canada Drugs Limited and its subsidiaries and affiliates in Britain and Barbados with money laundering, smuggling and conspiracy. According to the federal charges, an online pharmacy sold almost US$80 million in unapproved and mislabeled medicines to American doctors and patients who searched the Internet for cheap drugs to ease pain or prolong life, or both.
“People are driven by desperation to buy drugs on the dark Internet,” complained Tim Ramsey, operations manager of Centinet, which uses computers and other high tech tools to feret out counterfeit drugs.
The tragedy is that some of the drugs sold on the Internet can have lethal consequences for unsuspecting physicians and patients who believe they are paying for pills with active ingredients approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or its counterpart in Canada, but many, not all, receive useless “medicines” that often contain sugar, rat poison, gypsum, pesticides, heavy metals or household cleaners.
“We’ve found products with no active ingredients, too much, and in some cases a totally different active ingredient,” Bill Reid, head of Eli-Lilly drug counterfeiting unit, was quoted as telling Bloomberg Business Week.
Canada Drugs Limited, a Winnepeg company and its Barbados affiliates have been under US investigation for about three years. What triggered the probe was the online pharmacy’s acquisition of the customer list and inventory of Montana Healthcare Solutions in Belgrade. That move alledgedly enabled Canada Drugs to launch a direct sales drive of a cancer drug in the US, according to prosecutors.
The probe is said to have unearthed evidence that the firm had allegedly broken US federal laws. Hence, the 2014 indictment that accused executives of falsifying federal customs documents by placing lower values on its drug shipment to the US, in order to avoid scrutiny and make them more attractive to doctors and patients.
Barbados is alleged to have faciliated the payment of money for the medicines. Large sums reportedly passed through Barbados while profits were sent to Canada, the indictment alleged. There wasn’t any evidence that Barbados endangered the lives of patients.
Many of the executives named in the indictment don’t live or work in the US and it shouldn’t come as a surprise if US officials come knocking on doors in Barbados, the United Kingdom (UK) and other places seeking the extradition of the accused so they can face US courts in Montana.
The indictments and the investigations by cyber sleuths working for firms in the US$300 billion pharmaceutical industry couldn’t have come at a worse time for companies in Europe, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa which are involved in the online pharmacy business. Reasons abound.
For instance, the online drug trade is mushrooming as prescriptions for approved medicines rise sharply in the US, Canada and Europe. For another, drug prices are going through the roof. Take the case of Daraprim, which cancer and HIV/AIDS patients use to stay alive. The price of a single pill was once pegged at less than US$14 but it recently skyrocketed to US$750 a pop, a 5 000 per cent rise.
The manufacturer put it out of the reach of many patients who depend on it. Accused of price gouging, a New York start-up comapny which acquired the 62-year-old pill responded to the public outcry by promising a price reduction.
Criticisms from Hilary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presidential front-runner, who charged that “price gouging like the specialty drug market is outrageous” probably stirred Turing Pharmaceutical to talk about cutting the cost. To do that, the New York firm said it would offer discounts to hospitals that use the drug and gave an assurance that no patients in need of the medicine would be unable to get it.
The trouble is the company didn’t indicate how much it was cutting the price and when. Two weeks after announcing price reductions and other concessions, the cost of the drug remained sky high.
“They are still pricing it way above what the price of the medication should be,” charged Professor Carlos del Rio, of Emory University, who is also chairman of the HIV Medicine Association.
It’s that kind of situation in the drug marketplace that forces health professionals and patients to turn to online pharmacies to get authentic medicines at reasonable prices. Most of the drugs online do what they promise.
The hard part is that the international media attention has painted a less than flattering picture of Barbados, the UK, and other places involved in the business. It’s the risk Barbados runs by having such foreign companies on its shores.