How Big Pharma Is Fighting Counterfeit Drugs

CNBC published this video item, entitled “How Big Pharma Is Fighting Counterfeit Drugs” – below is their description.

CNBC investigates a shadowy network of criminals targeting life-saving prescription medications for HIV from companies like Gilead Sciences and Johnson & Johnson who buy the medications from patients desperate for cash. They then go to gray market distributors who sell the medications to pharmacies at a huge discount. A major case highlighted in the story in which some $230 million in counterfeit pills were distributed throughout the U.S., was run like an organized crime group, according to authorities. The kingpin, who was sentenced to a 15-year prison term, used the proceeds from the counterfeiting ring to fly to Las Vegas on private jets and gamble in high-stakes poker tournaments. In surveillance video, he’s seen with wads of cash at a casino. In an exclusive interview at Gilead headquarters, the company’s head of anti-counterfeiting and global product security details how drugs are diverted with fake labels and bottle caps and sold for less than $200 on the street, taking us inside the company’s “war room” where confiscated counterfeit pills and paperwork are stored. A convicted felon who got rich in from the counterfeit pill business explains how it all works and CNBC obtains a never before seen hidden camera video in which trio of counterfeiters is shown altering pill bottles in an apartment.
Correspondent: Contessa Brewer
Senior Investigative Producer: Scott Zamost
Editor: Allison Stedman
Animation: Michael Schwartz
Photojournalists: Duane Poquis, Jacob Jimenez, Oscar Molina, Marco Mastrorilli, Roger Prehoda, Steve Weiss
Audio: Steve Theroux, Lori Smith, Juan Merlo
CNBC YouTube Channel

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In This Story: HIV

The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of Lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.

Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype. In most cases, HIV is a sexually transmitted infection and occurs by contact with or transfer of blood, pre-ejaculate, semen, and vaginal fluids. Research has shown (for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples) that HIV is untransmittable through condomless sexual intercourse if the HIV-positive partner has a consistently undetectable viral load.

Non-sexual transmission can occur from an infected mother to her infant during pregnancy, during childbirth by exposure to her blood or vaginal fluid, and through breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.

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