Dr Zubir Ahmed, MP for Glasgow South West, has warned that counterfeit medicines “could be absolutely devastating”, highlighting that fake pharmaceuticals can cause a multitude of health problems, including infections, seizures and high blood pressure.
Speaking at the LabourList Labour Party Conference event ‘Fighting Pharma Fakes: The rise of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and how NHS codes can prevent them’, held in partnership with GS1 UK, Zubir said there is a need to “catch up” when it comes to meeting patient demand.
He argued that current policies are insufficient to meet these demands and that, from a political perspective, policymakers need to bridge the gap.
Oksana Pyzik, founder of the Fight the Fakes UCL Alliance and Academic Chair of the international Fight the Fakes Alliance, highlighted three main drivers behind the rise in counterfeit pharmaceuticals: increased demand, rising costs and low public awareness, or “low digital health literacy”, around online pharmacies.
Weight-loss drugs such as GLP-1s, or glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, are among the medicines increasingly sold through these channels. Mounjaro is one example of a GLP-1 medicine.
Pyzik also explained that social media influencers have played a significant role in the popularity of these drugs, arguing that the penalties for selling counterfeit medicines are relatively low. “If you look at what the penalties for this are, what kind of criminalisation or other disincentives, [they’re] fairly low risk,” she said.
She highlighted the potential for high profits with relatively low risk of repercussions for those selling counterfeit medicines, with the global counterfeit pharmaceutical market estimated to be worth around $200bn.
Georgina Lawton, Head of Healthcare at GS1 UK, discussed how pharmaceuticals can be identified using technologies such as barcodes, allowing medicines to be traced back to legitimate manufacturers.
However, she said this is becoming increasingly difficult as counterfeit medicines enter the market, describing this as the “challenge we have currently” when it comes to identifying fake pharmaceuticals.
Dr Zubir Ahmed said technology was key to tackling the problem, arguing: “Technology is the solution, we have to run towards technology not run away from it, as we often do.” He called for greater government support for technology that can help identify and prevent counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2026: Full LabourList events programme, revealed
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