WASHINGTON, DC ― Since the start of the pandemic, supply-chain problems have permeated just about every industry sector. While most of the media attention has focused on toilet paper and retail shipment delays, a darker, more sinister supply chain disruption has been unfolding, one that entails a sophisticated criminal enterprise that has been operating at scale to distribute and profit from counterfeit HIV drugs.
Over the past week or so, news has hit the news media — most notably in the Wall Street Journal — with reports of a Justice Department investigation into what appears to be a national drug trafficking network comprising more than 70 distributors and marketers.
The details read like a best-selling crime novel.
Since last year, authorities have seized 85,247 bottles of counterfeit HIV drugs, both Biktarvy (bictegravir 50 mg, emtricitabine 200 mg, and tenofovir alafenamide 25 mg tablets) and Descovy (emtricitabine 200 mg and tenofovir alafenamide 25 mg tablets). Law enforcement has conducted raids at 17 locations in eight states. Doctored supply chain papers have provided cover for the fake medicines and the individuals behind them.
But unlike the inconvenience of sparse toilet paper, this crime poses life-threatening risks to millions of patients with HIV who rely on Biktarvy to suppress the virus or Descovy to prevent infection from it.
