In May 2007, 18 industry and government officials met in a conference room in East Lansing, Michigan initially to discuss one thing: packaging.

The group included people from the pharmaceutical, food chemical and automobile industries, as well as representatives from the US Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture. John Spink, a certified packaging professional at Michigan State University (MSU), had convened the meeting to ask for advice on how best to study packaging for food and product protection.

The group, however, had a better idea: they needed an all-encompassing, holistic understanding of anticounterfeiting strategy. And they unanimously agreed that on-the-ground training was more important than academic research.

So, a year later, Spink launched a 14-week online graduate course in anticounterfeiting strategy spanning approximately 20 scientific disciplines, ranging from social anthropology to analytic chemistry to information technology—the first such program in the world. “We were specifically asked to do this because they weren't finding that core strategic perspective,” says Spink, who worked for 12 years with the oil giant Chevron. “It's outreach, teaching and research all in one.”

After taking the class last year, Doug Moyer, formerly the global packaging engineering manager at Ford Motor Company's Customer Service Division near Detroit, helped launch a separate graduate class at the MSU College of Human Medicine focused solely on counterfeit drugs. One of the handful of students who is taking the pilot class is Jacob Atem, one of the so-called 'lost boys of Sudan', who plans to open a clinic in his home village of Maar. “In my clinic, I don't want to give fake drugs that aren't effective,” he says. “My eyes are now open to all these problems that are rife in Africa.”

As yet, no law enforcement officials have taken Spink's course.

Industry, however, is reaching out to educate police officers on anticounterfeiting. Pfizer's senior director of global security, Patrick Ford, and his staff train prosecutors, judges and detectives on the dangers of counterfeit medicines.

His team also trains them on carrying out covert, undercover meetings with counterfeiters and trying to out shady online pharmacies. “It's more than just going out and buying products and arresting the bad guys,” stresses Ford, a former US Federal Bureau of Investigation agent himself. “It's frankly making the whole global environment more aware and safer for our patients.”