Medicrime convention officially launches this week

The Council of Europe's new Medicrime convention will be officially open for signatures at an event starting in Moscow, Russia, tomorrow, providing a boost to the global fight against counterfeit medicines and other forms of pharmaceutical crime.

The conference - hosted by Russia's Ministry of Public Health and Social Development and the Federal Service on Surveillance in Healthcare and Social Development (Roszdravnadzor) - will mark the official launch of the Medicrime convention.

Medicrime (see brochure) is the first international instrument for the criminalisation of counterfeiting of medical products and similar crimes in order to protect the public health, and obliges the 47 member states of the CoE to make criminal offences of:

• manufacturing counterfeit medical products;
• supplying, offering to supply or trafficking in counterfeit medical products;
• falsifying documents;
• manufacturing and supplying medical products without authorisation and marketing medicines without complying with industry standards (or so-called “similar crimes")

The convention can also be recognised and ratified by non-CoE countries around the world. Its overall aim was to remedy the situation that counterfeiting of medicines is handled differently from a legal perspective across all the countries in Europe.

Moreover, the penalties levied are often not a sufficient deterrent, and Medicrime is intended to lay down sanctions that are proportionate to the potential harm caused to patients.

The CoE conference this week (running from October 26-28: more details here) has the objective of not only opening the Medicrime convention for signature, but also "facilitating its rapid entry into force and effective implementation in Europe and beyond, making the fight against counterfeiting of medical products and similar crimes a priority on the political agenda.".

The forum will also be used to exchange views on the implementation of Medicrime into domestic legislation through legislative support and practical measures.

Speakers include Tatiana Golikova, Minister of Healthcare and Social Development of the Russian Federation, Philippe Boillat, Director General for Human Rights and Rule of Law at the CoE and  Susanne Keitel, Director of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM). A programme for the event is available here.