CEBU CITY鈥擜 retail price of P150 per box of Viagra could be enough to raise one part of the male anatomy鈥攖he eyebrows. And it did.
Acting on a complaint from the multinational drug firm Pfizer, the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas seized 383 boxes of fake Viagra on Tuesday during a raid on a store on Colon Street here.
Seized from Golden Ling Merchandise were Magna Rx (15 boxes), Golden Viagra (18 boxes with 12 tablets each) and Red Viagra (12 bottles with 10 tablets each). Each box of the fake Viagra is being sold at P150.
Genuine Viagra, manufactured by Pfizer, cost P3,500 per box with four tablets, according to Maximo Ocampo, Pfizer Philippines consultant.
If the volume of the seized fake medicines for erectile dysfunction had been genuine, the haul would have fetched P1 million at least.
Biggest stock
Ocampo said Golden Ling had the biggest stock of fake Viagra but authorities have not determined where these came from. The boxes that carried the tablets, however, had Chinese characters written on them.
Lawyer Renan Oliva, special agent of the NBI regional office, said the NBI has placed the store under surveillance in July this year after Pfizer Philippines complained about the proliferation of fake Viagra from Golden Ling Merchandise in boxes that carried the Pfizer logo.
According to the NBI, ambulant vendors had been tapped to sell the fake Viagra in the streets and keep customers buying by saying there鈥檚 more of the medicines at Golden Ling.
The NBI conducted a test buy on Aug. 27 but the store had transferred from its original location on Plaridel Street in Cebu City, according to Oliva.
The NBI conducted another surveillance operation on the store鈥檚 new location.
After a search warrant was issued against Golden Ling for trademark infringement and unfair competition, the NBI conducted another test buy on Tuesday, Oliva said.
After undercover agents paid P300 for two boxes of Viagra and were issued a receipt signed by Ali Tang, a Chinese national, they served the search warrant and seized the fake medicines.
The registered owner, Rita Tubongbanua, was not around during the raid but Tang received and signed the search warrant.
Tang, however, refused to confirm if he was the real owner and if Tubongbanua was just a dummy.
Health, safety risks
Pfizer, in its website, warned against the use of fake Viagra as this poses health and safety risks.
It said samples of fake Viagra that Pfizer tested contained blue printer ink, amphetamines (also known as speed) and metronidazole, a powerful antibiotic that could cause an allergic reaction, diarrhea or vomiting.
The fake Viagra also has traces of the active ingredient sildenafil citrate.
In 2008, Pfizer claimed that Viagra had become the most counterfeited drug on earth. Losses in sales due to counterfeit Viagra is estimated to be $2 billion a year, more than the $1.8-billion sale of Viagra in 2007.