The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new guideline that describes the procedure for checking supposedly counterfeit or suspect medicines.
The WHO distinguishes three types of "Suspect Medicines":
"Out of specification" medicines
Unregistered/unlicensed medicines
Medicines that have been deliberately falsified.
The present guideline deals mainly with the third category. It contains technical assistance for sampling, laboratory testing of supposedly falsified medicinal products and the corresponding reporting. Examples of this can be found in the appendix of the document for
Analysis methods for package identification
An information collection form
Content of a SOP for testing counterfeit tablets
Flowcharts for the review procedure (decision tree)