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Published on: February 5, 2018
Chromatography in the detection and characterization of illegal pharmaceutical preparations
Eric Deconinck1, Pierre-Yves Sacré, Patricia Courselle
1Division of Food, Medicines and Consumer Safety, Section Medicinal Products, Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP), Brussels, Belgium. Eric.Deconinck@wiv-isp.be
Abstract:
Counterfeit and illegal pharmaceutical products are an increasing worldwide problem and constitute a major challenge for analytical laboratories to detect and characterize them. Spectroscopic techniques such as infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy have always been the first methods of choice to detect counterfeits and illegal preparations, but due to the evolution in the seized products and the necessity of risk assessment, chromatographic methods are becoming more important in this domain. This review intends to give a general overview of the techniques described in literature to characterize counterfeit and illegal pharmaceutical preparations, focusing on the role of chromatographic techniques with different detection tools.
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