The British company Aegate says it has developed the ultimate counterfeit-drug detector:  a giant, centralized online database which lists virtually every drug ever produced legally.

Pharmaceutical companies are feeding the database --set up in the UK-- with millions of unique serialized codes. So when Belgian pharmacists buy or sell a drug, they first run a search to check that the barcode matches that in the database. 

As explained in an article from Medical News Today, the system “enables an authentication check of each individual medicine pack at the moment when it counts - before the drug is dispensed to the patient.”

After its success in Belgium,  Aegate aggressively promoted its product at the first European Parliament symposium on medicines counterfeiting in May 2007.

A news report from the Independent says that some 500,000 counterfeit medicines were seized at the EU's borders in 2005 and officials expect recent figures to be higher. The World Health Organization estimates that 1 per cent of drugs sold through legitimate channels in the developed world are counterfeit.

If Aegate's database is already being used by pharmacies, why can't it be used for online purchases as well?

---Marine Olivesi