Purdue scientist helps crack down on global counterfeit drug sales

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Approximately two million people shop online and around the world for medicine.

Health experts say the numbers don’t lie — those shoppers are looking for a bargain because purchasing drugs outside the U.S. is cheaper than buying them inside the country.

But, this is a problem. Many times, these medications are fake, rendering them useless against whatever condition they were designed to treat. And those 2 million people buying them? They don’t even know it. 

News 8 spoke with Dr. Young Kim, scientist at Purdue University, who wants Hoosiers to know what he and his team are doing to crack down on these pharmaceutical scammers. 

“The idea is that we want to combine paper watermarking and digital watermarking together using edible protein material,” Kim said. “We want to encode information about the medicine and supply chains into this edible material that is attached to the pill.”

Kim says this encoded identification will help people determine what’s real versus what’s not. If a person does happen to purchase a counterfeit pill, they can report it to a regulating agency such as the Food and Drug Administration, who can then take action and shut down the company.

Out of all the online pharmacies worldwide, Kim estimates only 3% to 4% are operating legally. The rest, Kim says, are unregulated, leaving criminals to steal from desperate and sick people.