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SCMP Reporter

About 80 per cent of counterfeit drugs seized by customs officers in Hong Kong are those used to treat impotence.  
Customs made the finding after regular surveillance operations targeting bogus pharmaceuticals, Albert Ho Shi-King,  the head of Customs' Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau,  said.
'The majority of counterfeit drugs - about 80 per cent - seized by customs are drugs to treat impotence,' Ho said, adding that fake drugs were being targeted by customs as they were more likely to cause harm. 
Viagra and Cialis are the two brands of impotence drugs counterfeited the most, customs officers found. 
Some consumers might not even realise when they have purchased counterfeit drugs, according to a patients' group.
'Victims might not know whether the drugs are fake even when they take them,' Cheung Tak-hai,  vice-chairman of the Alliance for Patients' Mutual Help Organisations,  said. 'Or some might be too shy to report the case because they don't want anyone to know they're impotent.' 
Priced at about HK$80, the relatively high cost of Viagra would have prompted criminals to counterfeit and sell the bogus product, Cheung said.
The amount of counterfeit drugs seized from retailers by customs increased from 6,282 units in 2007 to 9,311 last year.  
Customs was targeting the import and export of fake drugs in a bid to stop supply to the market, Ho said. Of the total fake drugs seized in 2009, 69 per cent were found either coming into or going out of Hong Kong.
Regular surveillance is conducted in conjunction with the Hong Kong Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry,  which represents 38 pharmaceutical firms and provides more than 70 per cent of prescription drugs in the city.
Undercover officers visit  pharmacies in different districts every month to  check whether counterfeit drugs are being sold. 
Cheung said the amount of  such drugs in the city was increasing and most came from the mainland. 
'We've heard that the packets of fake Viagra are even more sophisticated than the real ones,' Cheung said. 
Pfizer,  the firm that makes Viagra, called for those convicted of selling counterfeit drugs to be more heavily penalised. 
In some cases, sellers have been fined only several thousand dollars or ordered to carry out community work, Geraldine Ip Pui-see,  Pfizer's corporate affairs manager, said.
Forging a trademark, and the import, export or sale of a product with a forged trademark is an offence with a maximum penalty of HK$500,000 and five years in prison, according to the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.  
In the past three years, those convicted of such offences have been ordered to pay fines ranging from HK$1,500 to HK$200,000 and were sentenced to one to 20 months' jail. Sabrina Chan,  executive director of the HKAPI,  said some of the fake impotence, depression or slimming drugs seized had been bulked up with starch or flour, while others had less or more of the active ingredient than the genuine  drug. 
'We even found some chemicals commonly found in paints in the fake drugs,' Chan said. 
William Chui Chun-ming,  vice-president of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Hong Kong,  said some pharmacies sold counterfeit medicine or provided prescription drugs to patients without prescriptions when their pharmacists were not on the premises.
He said it could help deter sales of fake products if pharmacists were required to be on duty at all times rather than the current 66.7 per cent of business hours.



Impotence drugs top list of fakes