Counterfeit medicine database

Scientists from Roche, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, have developed a spectral database to help organizations in the fight against counterfeit medicines. The database is part of a study published in Forensic Science International.¹

The database was compiled by using near-infrared and raman spectroscopy to analyse the counterfeits of a range of pharmaceutical products. Unsupervised chemometric techniques were used to identify the classes within the datasets and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used to determine the number of different chemical profiles within the counterfeits.

Taking these chemical profiles, the study claims “the model is able to compare the spectrum of a new counterfeit with that of previously analysed products and to determine if a new specimen belongs to one of the existing classes.”

The study is available online ahead of print.

1. F. Beena et al., Forensic Science International, online 26 May 2011.