FDA Action and Enforcement Involving Medical Product Misbranding

FDA closely monitors the development, performance, safety and efficacy of drugs, diagnostics, biologics, personalized, combination, traditional, proteomics, genomics and delivery device systems as well as investigating illegal actions involving Internet "website" misbranding of drugs, claims, marketing, sales initiatives, advertising and otherwise. In 2009, for example, FDA coordinated a week long, global effort to uncover such illegal activities. Via the IIWA, FDA issued at least 22 warning letters pertaining to "website" illegal claim and misbranding activities involving:

• service providers
• domain name registrars
• selling products violators
• prescription drugs
• pharmacies
• counterfeit drugs
• contaminated drugs
• expired drugs
• adulterated drugs
• unapproved drugs
• active ingredient inconsistencies
• change of formulation
• batch to batch, lot to lot deviations
• CMC changes
• counterfeit claims
• altered medical devices.

Divisions at FDA working in conjunction with FDA's OCI, Office of Criminal Investigation, CDER, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Office of Regulatory Affairs, targeted 136 websites who were actively and knowingly engaged in the marketing and sale of unapproved and/or misbranded medical products and drugs. The penalties for such illegal actions are civil and criminal, resulting in imprisonment, fines, immediate company closure, loss of operating licenses and otherwise. The violations trigger immediate loss of service provider and domain name registrars, revocation, suspension and termination. Seizure and elimination of the illegal supply chain, drug, medical products and devices are immediate. The protection is enforced due to the medical risk and danger to patients and consumers trusting false, misleading, misbranded, illegal claims for profit.

The initiative was sponsored by the ICPO, International Criminal Police Organization, the World Health Organization's International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, the Permanent Forum on International Pharmaceutical Crime and national health and law enforcement agencies from 24 participating countries. Immigration, Customs, Border Protection, US Postal and other government worldwide agencies were involved in the week long effort to curb civil and criminal "misbranding" activities.

Information pertaining to the warning letters issued by FDA pertaining to the information cited above may be found on fda.gov.

Monitor the quality, consistency, accuracy pertaining to branding and labels, claims. Adhere to agency compliance and meet regulatory requirements for all phases of medical product development, preclinical, CMC, clinical, application, implementation, surveillance, clinical submission, pre-approval, approval, post-approval commitments, advertising, marketing, branding, label requirements, claim substantiation and sales.

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