Classification trees based on infrared spectroscopic data to discriminate between genuine and counterfeit medicines

Due to the extension of the internet, counterfeit drugs represent a growing threat for public health in the developing countries but also more and more in the industrial world. In literature several analytical techniques were applied in order to discriminate between genuine and counterfeit medecines. One thing all these techniques have in common is that they generate a huge amount of data, which is often difficult to interpret in order to see differences between the different samples and to determine the cause of the differences. The majority of the authors make use of explorative chemometric tools to visualise the differences in the data obtained for the different samples. Even if some of the applied methods could be able to give a model with predictive ability, only a few authors created a model able to predict if a sample is counterfeit or not. Classification trees built with the Classification And Regression Tree algorithm were evaluated for modelling infrared spectroscopic data in order to discriminate between genuine and counterfeit drug samples and to classify counterfeit samples in different classes following the RIVM classification system. Models were built for two data sets consisting of the Fourrier Transformed Infrared spectra, the Near Infrared spectra and the Raman spectra for genuine and counterfeit samples of respectively Viagra