just wondering if anyone knowledgable in chemistry or pill making can explain to me

medicine is often expensive so what kind of medicines are easy to counterfeit and which are not?

Lots of them are being counterfeited... it happens all the time..
Any place that sells online is suspect.

whats your question?

Problem for consumers is its much easier to counterfeit the packaging than the contents.

Biologics like monoclonal antibodies which are often the most expensive are insanely hard to manufacture. Not saying it's impossible but it prob wouldn't be worth the money.

Non-biologics aren't near as hard. In fact India doesn't recognize medicinal patents so they manufacture quite a few trade name drugs and sell then under generic names in India.

If you are sick you dont want medication from a illegal drug dealer you want it from a doctor.

interesting. thanks!

hah, so true
yeah just wanna know about the feasability of counterfeitting drugs.

i just think it's an interesting topic. like whether expensive drugs are harder to replicate, and like how available the intellectual property to create these is, and then how readily available the instruments to pull it off are to the public. this idea spawned from not liking the commercial i saw for the morning after pill earlier (costs 40 bucks for one... and also i'm like ****, people pay 30 or 40 all the time for one oxycodone 80mg... i should be making these!! :-P jk, F opiods!!)

You dont have to counterfeit drugs to make drugs though, I mean if the market is as good as you think it is get in there =P

uneducated people can teach themselves how to synthesise a variety of recreational drugs, it happens all the time, the limiting factor is sourcing the source chemicals which are often controlled. feel like that might be just as much of a problem as acquiring enough knowledge and equipment

If you have the capital to synthesize and purify drugs on a large scale, you're either doing it all in an "above-board," legal manner or you're much better off manufacturing something that is actually worth the trouble that will provide a significant return (like meth).

It is not technically difficult for a drug company to "counterfeit" another company's drugs, especially small molecule drugs. As another poster said, biologics are trickier but certainly possible. However, there are very strong intellectual property laws protecting against this.

Through the internet it is actually pretty easy to buy "counterfeit" drugs on the black market, but then you are working with companies that operate outside regulatory agencies, and you really have no assurance you are getting what you are paying for.

Sort of like online poker I guess.

The pharmaceutical industry is actually a very interesting and complex one. Perhaps the biggest, and most expensive, barrier to entry is working the regulatory agencies. This is especially true of the FDA, which is one of the hardest agencies to navigate through, which is why there are many drugs allowed in other countries that are not in the US.

Like in most industries, most drugs are priced to maximize profit, given the market and insurance conditions. For example, Proscar (prostate hyperplasia) and Propecia (hair loss) are the EXACT same drug, but they have very different price schedules.

Also, for drugs the main cost is in drug development and regulatory approval, before the drug has even been to market. By the time a drug has gotten to market, a company may have spent $1 billion developing it. Once is has been developed and approved by regulatory agencies, the manufacturing costs are relatively nothing, although biologics are generally much more expensive than small molecule drugs to manufacture.

This is why intellectual property laws are so strong, as a company has to have assurance they can have exclusive right to sell a drug at a relatively high price to recoup the development costs for a certain number of years.

Then, after a number of years the patent expires and the drug goes on the open market, at which point the drug will go generic, the price will go way down, and if the drug is not too dangerous it may become available over the counter.