Sanofi-Aventis sets up dedicated counterfeit lab

French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis has officially inaugurated its Central Anti-Counterfeit Laboratory, which first started operating in January 2008.

The unit, located at Sanofi-Aventis' Tours facility in Indre-et-Loire, France, employs eight staff tasked with examining suspicious packaging and leaflets, as well as conducting tests on suspect samples of commonly counterfeited Sanofi-Aventis products.

The company’s blockbuster antiplatelet drug Plavix (clopidogrel), with sales of  €630m in the third quarter of 2008, has been targeted by counterfeiters on a number of occasions.

The laboratory will develop test methods and distribute them globally in order to allow any industrial plant in the world to inspect and test, with the same criteria, suspect products corresponding to those manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis.

It will also develop and operate a system of "identity cards" for the counterfeit drugs found, in a single, central database, to make it possible to compare different types of counterfeit.

In 2007, more than 2.5 million doses of counterfeited Sanofi-Aventis products were discovered throughout the world, said the company.