Personal imports of drugs to Japan in 2005--an analysis of import certificates

New opportunity for orphan drug development in Japan: Early exploratory clinical trial bases promote drug translation from basic studies to clinical application

In Japan, although orphan drug legislation has been established in 1993 to encourage drug research and development (R&D) for intractable and rare diseases, nearly half of the orphan drugs in the Japanese market originated from the European Union (EU) or the United States of America (USA). Availability of orphan drugs for intractable and rare diseases is compounded by the "drug lag" phenomenon, which is mainly caused by the imperfect clinical trial environment in Japan. In recent years, the Japanese government paid great attention to development of innovative drugs and medical devices which originated from Japan. With financial support and institutional guarantees from government, the project of "Early Exploratory Clinical Trial Bases for Specific Research Areas" was launched in 2011 and 5 institutions were selected as the national early exploratory clinical trial bases for specific research areas including cancer, cerebral and cardiovascular diseases, neuropsychiatric disorders, and immunological intractable diseases. The early exploratory clinical trial bases offer a new opportunity for drug development for immunological and neuropsychiatric intractable diseases, thereby promoting orphan drug translation from basic studies to clinical use.

Public health concerns for anti-obesity medicines imported for personal use through the internet: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE

To explore the circulation of anti-obesity medicines via the internet and their quality.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Internet pharmacies and pharmaceutical suppliers accessible from Japan.

PARTICIPANTS

Anti-obesity medicines were purchased using relevant keywords on Japanese Google search engine. Blogs and advertisement-only sites were excluded.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

The authenticity of the samples was investigated in collaboration with the manufacturers of the samples and medicine regulatory authorities. Quality of the samples was assessed by pharmacopoeial analyses using high-performance liquid chromatography.

RESULTS

82 samples were purchased from 36 internet sites. Approximately half of the sites did not mention a physical address, and 45% of the samples did not contain a package insert. A variety of custom declarations were made for the shipments of the samples: personal health items, supplement, medicines, general merchandise, tea and others. Among 82 samples, 52 samples were analysed to check their pharmacopoeial quality. Authenticity responses were received from only five of 20 manufacturing companies. According to the pharmacopoeial analyses and authenticity investigation, three of the samples were identified as counterfeits and did not contain any active ingredients. Two of these samples were confirmed as counterfeits by the manufacturer of the authentic products. The manufacturer of the other sample did not respond to our request for an authenticity check even after several communication attempts. These counterfeit cases have been reported at the rapid alert system of Western Pacific Region of the WHO.

CONCLUSIONS

Many counterfeit and unapproved anti-obesity medicines may be easily bypassing regulatory checks during shipping and are widely circulated through the internet. Regulatory authorities should take measures to prevent these medicines from entering countries to safeguard their citizens.