Improving medicine quality

Substandard and falsified medicines are a growing concern both for LMICs and high income countries. Screening technologies help identify poor quality medicines and give an early signal when issues arise. This work also provides data for models to better understand the impact of poor quality medicines on antimicrobial resistance.

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Dr Céline Caillet joined IDDO as Scientific Coordinator of the Medicine Quality Research Group in 2015. She was appointed Research Scientist in 2016 and promoted to Deputy Head of the Research Group in 2020.

Céline is a pharmacist and former resident of the Hospital of Toulouse. She has taken part in several research projects on drug safety at the Center of Pharmacovigilance, Laboratory of Medical and Clinical Pharmacology of Toulouse, France. Following her MSc in Epidemiology and Public Health in Bordeaux, France, Céline completed her PhD in drug safety in Laos. During her PhD, Céline also taught pharmacology in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Health Sciences, Vientiane.

Medicines are of vital importance in health systems, and access to quality-assured medicines is part of the basic right to health. Nevertheless, poor quality medical products, including medicines, vaccines and diagnostic devices, are widespread due to poor manufacture (substandard medicines) or deliberate falsification. These jeopardise national, regional and global attempts to improve access to effective health care because they lead to avoidable morbidity and mortality, waste financial resources, and contribute to drug resistance.

There are several ways to fight against poor-quality medicines. The medicine quality research group of the MORU Tropical Health Network and the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory aims at sharing expertise and collating information to increase understanding of the prevalence and distribution of poor quality medicines around the world. The group encourages discussion of poor quality medicine epidemiology, detection and prevention, and aims to facilitate improvement in the quality of medicines that patients actually take. The group also advocates for more investment in the regulation of medicine distribution and treatment adherence and interventions to improve medicine quality.