The topic of counterfeit medicines was discussed at the recent PTMG (Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group) Spring conference in Munich. This article explores the situation in the UK and ways in which the issue is being addressed.
Earlier this year, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ("MHRA"), the UK regulator of medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion, responsible for making sure these products meet set standards for safety, quality and efficacy, published a press release stating that it had seized illegal medicines worth almost £45 million in 2025.
The MHRA's action prevented nearly 20 million doses of potentially dangerous medicines from reaching the public. Counterfeit medicines contain harmful substances or incorrect dosages which can harm health. The counterfeit medicines will usually include logos, brand names, labels, packaging, colour combinations, shapes or design elements identical or deceptively similar to those used by pharmaceutical companies in relation to authorised medicines. This makes it difficult for the public to determine whether medicine is counterfeit.
Counterfeit medicine is an increasingly challenging problem. MHRA's press release stated that the number of illegally traded medicines removed from circulation between 2024 and 2025 increased by 3 million. Websites and social media allow counterfeiters to reach and sell counterfeit medicines to large numbers of the public more easily. Counterfeiters might use websites designed to look like legitimate pharmacies or online retailers, or advertise the counterfeit medicines through online marketplaces and social media sites.
The MHRA's Criminal Enforcement Unit ("CEU") worked with internet service providers to disrupt more than 1,500 websites and social media accounts illegally selling medical products to the public and removed more than 1,200 social media posts in 2025. In addition, the MHRA worked in collaboration with eBay to create an AI algorithm, which successfully identified and blocked more than two million violations of eBay's policies on prescription only and non-compliant over the counter medicines, before the products could be offered for sale to the public.
Unauthorised use of a trade mark owned by a pharmaceutical company in relation to counterfeit medicine can not only have serious health implications for the public, but it can result in reputational damage to the company and profit loss. In order to tackle these issues, pharmaceutical companies have implemented anti-counterfeiting measures in relation to the design, packaging and labelling of medicines and also through the technological developments to quickly detect counterfeit medicine and packaging.
IP enforcement also plays a role to help remedy the situation. Filing domain name dispute complaints and social media take down requests are a useful tool to remove the sale of counterfeit medicines online. For successful domain name complaints, pharmaceutical companies can request transfer, cancellation or suspension of the disputed domain name. Recent domain name dispute activity in the UK includes AbbVie Inc. filing Nominet domain name dispute complaints against the domain names "abbviepharma.co.uk", "abbviepharmaceutical.co.uk" and "abbviepharmaceutiicals.co.uk" and Novartis AG filing a Nominet domain name dispute complaint against the domain name <novartispharm.co.uk>. All of these decisions required transfer of the disputed domain names from the registrants to AbbVie Inc. and Novartis AG.
Even domain names containing a pharmaceutical company's name that do not resolve to an active website can have possible consequences. For example, internet users could be led to believe that the pharmaceutical company is not on the Internet or that company is no longer active.
The UK Trade Marks Act 1994 (the "Act") can be used to bring civil and criminal proceedings against counterfeiters. Pharmaceutical companies can rely on Section 10 of the Act to bring civil proceedings and Section 92 of the Act to bring criminal proceedings, the latter of which can result in a fine or a maximum imprisonment sentence of 10 years.
According to online sources, in 2025, counterfeiters in the UK were sentenced to several years imprisonment for selling counterfeit versions of the anti-anxiety medicine Xanax, including conspiracy to use unauthorised trade marks. The group used tablet press machines, metal pill casts, active ingredients imported from China and stamped the counterfeit medicine with the mark XANAX. The operation was discovered after an investigation was launched by Pfizer, the manufacturer of genuine Xanax medicine.
In addition, the MHRA carried out what is believed to be the largest single seizure of trafficked weight loss medicines recorded by a law enforcement agency worldwide in 2025 in Northampton. The MHRA officers, with Northamptonshire police, seized tens of thousands of empty weight loss pens, raw chemical ingredients, and more than 2,000 unlicensed retatrutide and tirzepatide pens awaiting dispatch to customers. Retatrutide is GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) medicine developed by Eli Lilly, currently in clinical development, which has not been approved for UK use, so any sale to consumers is illegal.
This highlights the importance of pharmaceutical companies having their own anti-counterfeit measures in place to detect counterfeit medicines and deter counterfeiters, but that a collaborative approach between pharmaceutical companies, public and private sectors and the general public is necessary in order to deter and remove counterfeiters in the pharmaceutical sector.
