Counterfeit medicines are part of the broader phenomenon of substandard pharmaceuticals - medicines manufactured below established standards of safety, quality and efficacy. They are deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and counterfeit medicines may include products with the correct ingredients but fake packaging, with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients or with insufficient active ingredients. This definition is provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in their Fact sheet on counterfeits.
