Counterfeit Medicine
A pharmaceutical product that is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to its identity, composition, or source. Counterfeit peptides may contain no active ingredient, incorrect amounts, contaminated material, or entirely different substances. They pose serious safety risks.
Technical Context
The WHO estimates up to 10% of medicines worldwide may be substandard or falsified (higher in developing countries). Counterfeit peptide drug risks include: no active ingredient (inert powder), incorrect amount of active ingredient (subtherapeutic or supratherapeutic), wrong active ingredient entirely, contamination with toxic substances, non-sterile injectable products, and degraded or expired products repackaged with false dates. Anti-counterfeiting measures include: serialisation (unique identifier on each package — mandated by FDA DSCSA, EU FMD), tamper-evident packaging, holographic labels, track-and-trace systems, and authentication technologies (QR codes linking to manufacturer databases). For GLP-1 RAs with high market demand and shortages, counterfeit risk is elevated — the FDA has issued warnings about counterfeit semaglutide products sold through illegitimate channels.