TY - JOUR
AU - Traynor,, Kate
AB - Cargo and warehouse thefts involving pharmaceuticals are a serious supply-chain security problem, but experts say the industry is making headway against these crimes. An April 2011 report from supply-chain security firm FreightWatch International states that cargo thefts involving pharmaceuticals nearly quadrupled from 2006, when 12 thefts were reported, to 46 incidents in 2008. Since then, the rate of pharmaceutical cargo thefts has flattened, with 47 incidents reported in 2009 and 49 last year. FreightWatch attributed the slowdown to “intense efforts by the Pharmaceutical industry to harden the supply chain.” “That’s really good news. Let’s hope it continues,” said Gregg Goneconto, special agent and senior operations manager for FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, during a May 13 Drug Information Association symposium on the prevention of cargo and warehouse theft held in Rockville, Maryland. Less good is the news from Freight-Watch that thefts of consumer health care products like creams, lotions, perfumes, and toothpaste rose from 8 reported incidents in 2006 to 54 reports last year. The organization stated that thieves may be shifting their efforts from medications to consumer care products because they have become easier than medications to steal and sell. Goneconto said his office started focusing on cargo and warehouse thefts about two years ago, partly in response to concerns raised by FreightWatch. He said the agency’s main worry is that stolen products will reenter the supply chain after they have expired or been improperly stored, diluted, or otherwise adulterated in ways that could harm patients. “These crimes threaten the public health because product that has left the legitimate supply chain poses potential safety risks to consumers,” Goneconto explained. He noted that FDA last summer warned consumers not to use inhalers containing fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder from GlaxoSmithKline that were stolen from a warehouse in 2009 and began showing up in pharmacies a year later. When thieves steal a portion of a lot that is already in the marketplace, manufacturers should do a risk analysis to determine whether the whole lot needs to be recalled, according to FDA. If none of the lot has been distributed, a decision must be made whether to quarantine the remaining production batch and not release it to commerce. Goneconto said FDA has learned that those who are responsible for the thefts are old hands at drug-related crimes. “We found out that the same people involved in counterfeiting and selling counterfeit drugs . . . are also involved in cargo theft,” he said. “There’s a very strong connection between prescription drug diversion and cargo thefts.” Goneconto said that although the drug industry appears to be making headway against cargo and warehouse heists, he expects thieves to adjust their tactics and try to overcome new security challenges. “There’s a lot of money to be made in drug diversion,” he said. Wake-up call In March 2010, thieves entered through the roof of an Eli Lilly warehouse in Enfield, Connecticut, disabled the facility’s alarm system, and stole 49 pallets of prescription medications valued at more than $70 million. A galling aspect of the crime is that the thieves used Lilly’s own forklift to load the pallets onto their tractor-trailer, said Robert Reilly, chief security officer for Lilly. Another is that there was no security fence around the warehouse at the time of the theft, although plans had been in place to install one. Reilly said it probably took the thieves no more than two hours to break in, load their trailer, and drive away. He said simple things like disabling forklifts at the end of the day and installing a fence would have slowed the thieves down and should be part of any good warehouse security plan. Lilly has evaluated theft risks associated with all elements of its operations and made security-related changes since the burglary, Reilly said. Charles Forsaith, corporate director of supply chain security for Purdue Pharma, said one of the most important things Lilly did for the industry after the burglary was to immediately publicize the incident. “Not only did Lilly wake us up, the people from Lilly were able to share everything they could . . . with the rest of the industry,” Forsaith said. FDA has also endorsed the need to share information about cargo and warehouse thefts immediately after they occur. According to an April 2010 communication from the agency, prompt public notification about such thefts “is a critical step in protecting the public health because it alerts others in the supply chain and the public to look out for the stolen products and to be skeptical of offers for these products at unusually low prices or from a person outside the legitimate distribution chain. In addition, if persons in the supply chain are looking out for these products, it becomes more difficult for the thieves to sell the products back into the legitimate supply chain.” Forsaith said having a plan in place to publicize thefts can help lead to the recovery of stolen products. Recovery is even more likely, he said, when manufacturers take additional precautions with their products. He recalled an incident last year, when thieves stole a parked tractor-trailer loaded with medications from a truck stop in Virginia while the drivers were inside a restaurant eating their dinner. He said the thieves disabled a global positioning satellite device in the truck’s cab but not the one hidden in the cargo area with the medications. With the aid of that device, the truck was recovered less than 100 miles away with the entire load intact. “Five years ago, there wouldn’t have been a tracking device” in the trailer, Forsaith said. He said the chance of re-covering valuable cargoes of stolen pharmaceuticals has more than doubled over the past five years, to about 68%. Vulnerabilities Forsaith said security experts have a simple mantra: “Cargo at rest is cargo at risk.” According to FreightWatch, warehouse burglaries like Lilly’s accounted for 9 of the thefts reported during 2005–2010. Nearly 90% of the 293 pharmaceutical cargo and freight thefts reported during that time were accomplished by stealing the vehicles used to transport the products. Hijackings accounted for just 12 thefts; the vast majority of the time, thieves targeted parked trailers. Forsaith said thieves target trucks that start their trips late in the week for next-week delivery, because the vehicles are often parked over the weekend and can be stolen then. He said most pharmaceutical cargo theft occurs east of the Mississippi River, especially around Memphis, Tennessee, because the area is a major transportation hub. “That’s where [manufacturers] warehouse all their goods, because it’s easy to get out to the four corners of the country from there,” he said. On Saturday, May 14, the day after the cargo theft conference, thieves stole nearly 13,000 units of Pfizer prescription medications that were being transported from Memphis to a facility in the North-east, according to FDA. The agency warned pharmacies to be suspicious of low-price offers for these products, which may indicate that they were part of the stolen cargo. Copyright © 2011, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.
TI - Drug industry, FDA try to stay ahead of cargo thieves
JF - American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy
DO - 10.2146/news110045
DA - 2011-07-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/drug-industry-fda-try-to-stay-ahead-of-cargo-thieves-wASPxhnej3
SP - 1182
VL - 68
IS - 13
DP - DeepDyve
ER -