Project CAPSULE – Final Report

This report is the result of the project CAPSULE (Collecting and sharing information on the Consumers’ Awareness about the Purchase of SUbstandard and falsified medicines onlinE to support better e-commerce practices), conducted  by Transcrime in cooperation with the Inspection & Certification Department of the Italian Medicines Agency – AIFA and supported by Michigan State University’s Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection (A-CAPP). The project aimed to investigate consumers’ awareness of substandard and falsified medicines (SFMs) and the risk of purchasing them online.

The pharmaceutical illicit market has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, exploiting vulnerable consumers through misleading online advertisements and websites, endangering public health and undermining regulatory measures. Existing efforts to combat the spread of SFMs online focus mainly on targeting online supply. The CAPSULE project instead focused on the demand side of the market, assessing the exposure and behavior of Italian and Spanish consumers to define targeted information campaigns and interventions.