There's justifiably a lot of attention on what appears to be the mother of all prescription-drug thefts. Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals valued at around $75 million were stolen in a burglary that can best be described as daring, from a non-descript Enfield, Conn. warehouse over the weekend.

The burglars used techniques that are being described as straight out of a Hollywood heist movie like "Oceans 13." A team of thieves cut a hole in the roof, lowered themselves through it, disabled the security system and made off with pallets of prescription drugs such as the antidepressants Prozac and Cymbalta and the anti-psychotic Zyprexa.

A snippet from the Associated Press gives us this colorful description of the crime.

"This is like the Brink's pill heist," said Erik Gordon, a
University of Michigan business professor who studies the health
care industry. "This one will enter the folklore..."

It also gives us a local police chief who states what's obvious:

"Just by the way it occurred, it appears that there were
several individuals involved and that it was a very well
planned-out and orchestrated operation," Enfield Police Chief Carl
Sferrazza said. "It's not your run-of-the-mill home burglary,
that's for sure."

Experts described it as one of the biggest pharmaceutical heists
in history.

The AP story reports further that consumers shouldn't worry about the drugs winding up at their local big-name chain pharmacies since those companies keep close tabs on their supply chains.

It's more likely that the drugs would be distributed through an Internet pharmacy or sent overseas, according to the experts AP talked with.

 

They also said the crime bore similarities to other warehouse burglaries. Another AP snippet which refers to Dan Burges, intelligence director at FreightWatch
International, a security company in Texas:

Pharmaceuticals made up 5 percent of the thefts of commodities
in 2009 in the U.S. The average such heist was worth about $2.5
million, according to FreightWatch. Pharmaceuticals are usually
stolen from trucks or cargo containers - there were a few dozen
such thefts last year - though Burges said warehouse break-ins are
on the rise as thieves become more sophisticated.

"They're very creative, they're very good at what they do, and
catching them is a very difficult thing," he said.

In this report reviewing freight thefts in the first six months of 2009, Burges also writes that warehouses were being increasingly targeted because pharmaceutical companies have added security to the trucks that carry their valuable cargo.

... Pharmaceutical full truckload thefts are down nearly 50%. As companies are hardening their supply chains and enacting more over the road security measures, cargo theft gangs are finding fewer pharmaceutical loads being left unattended, and thus more difficult to steal. However, pharmaceuticals are clearly still being targeted by gangs, as a warehouse was
burglarized in Olive Branch, Mississippi, this year, marking the first significant pharmaceutical
burglary recorded.

While it's unlikely the stolen drugs would wind up at a major pharmacy chain, there is still the very real fear that they could wind up being used by U.S. patients.

As the AP story mentions, there was an incident last year in which insulin in North Carolina wound up at a Houston medical center. Stolen insulin is especially worrisome since that product must be refrigerated to remain effective.

Some patients who took the purloined product had trouble controlling their blood sugar. Novo Nordisk, the insulin's manufacturer, warned of the theft in a press release.

Insulin appears to have been stolen a number of times, according to news reports like this one in USA Today.