Materia Medica Malaysiana

Other ways to check fakes

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry has been urged to work with the pharmaceutical industry to minimise parallel imports and counterfeit products.

Pharmaceutical Association of Malaysia president Dr Choe Tong Seng said the ministry should work together with the industry’s players before implementing the use of hologram on pharmaceutical products as there were other approaches that could be used.

He said the ministry’s current move to enforce the use of hologram on pharmaceutical products by Jan 1, next year, alone was inadequate if other measures were not taken at the same time.

“We support the use of hologram but other measures such as monitoring the distribution channel, carrying out heavier penalties, having more enforcement officers and educating consumers, should also be carried out,” he said.

Dr Choe was commenting on an announcement by the ministry’ pharmacy services division director Datuk Mohd Zin Che Awang yesterday, who said all OTC (over-the-counter) products, controlled items containing poison, traditional medicine and health supplements must bear the hologram by Jan 1, while products that need to be used in the form of injection must have the hologram by next July.

Mohd Zin said the aim was to curb counterfeit and parallel products and only cosmetics and exported products would be exempted.

“The ministry had signed a contract with a French hologram manufacturer and a local agent, Mediharta Sdn Bhd, and will be responsible for distributing and selling the holograms as well as keeping records of buyers,” he said yesterday after attending the bilateral meeting between Health Minister Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek and Indonesian Health Minister Dr Achmad Sujudi here.

Mohd Zin also said it would be difficult to fake the multi-layered hologram as it would take a lot of time to produce an imitation.

“Each hologram will have a serial number and the agent will record the name of the buyer every time the buyer makes his purchases,” he said.

A leading international pharmaceutical company pointed out that the use of hologram was proven to be ineffective as they had tried using it before.

“We have been using hologram for the past three or four years on our products but counterfeit and parallel imports still exist,” a source from the company said.