The legislation, introduced by Indiana GOP Rep. Steve Buyer and Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson late last week, would create a nationwide system that would electronically track pills from their production to the doctor's office or pharmacy.

"You want to have confidence when you are taking a pill that it is what the label on the bottle says it is," Matheson said.

The legislation follows the 2003 recall of about 200,000 bottles of counterfeit Lipitor, a cholesterol-reducing drug, and the more recent incident involving overseas suppliers of contaminated Heparin, a blood thinner.

The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest predicts the counterfeit drug market worldwide will grow by $75 billion annually by 2010, much of that growth coming from the U.S., where people pay the highest prescription drug costs.

The Buyer-Matheson bill would require the destruction of any seized counterfeit pills and would create a national tracking system using barcodes and radio frequency chips that would meld the programs passed by individual states.

California was the first state to adopt a similar tracking law, but the state has delayed its implementation twice because drug companies say they are not yet prepared to use electronic tracking. California passed the law in 2004 and it is not slated to go into effect until 2011.

"Even though bogus drugs account for a small fraction of the 3 billion prescriptions filled in this country each year, it's time to fill the gaps in our regulatory system before the situation gets worse," Matheson said.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to discuss this bill along with other proposed drug regulations on Thursday. Matheson hopes to get the proposal wrapped into a larger food and drug safety bill scheduled for debate later this year.

mcanham@sltrib.com