With counterfeit prescription medicines flooding the world’s markets, pharmaceutical giants are calling for a treaty that would set a first-ever protocol for fighting global piracy and counterfeiting operations.

At a meeting of the International Chamber of Commerce in Midtown yesterday, Pfizer, General Electric, and Sanofi-Aventis came together to discuss the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which is largely aimed at combating what has become the most lucrative type of piracy around the world: fake prescription drugs.

According to the International Chamber of Commerce, global industry will lose an estimated 10% of its revenues to counterfeiting and piracy operations this year.

“This goes beyond just selling fake goods,” Pfizer’s senior vice president for pharmaceutical operations, Andreas Fibig, said at yesterday’s meeting. “Counterfeit medicines place human lives at risk. This is now a public health issue.”

Counterfeit medicines are taking a toll on New York City-based Pfizer, with global authorities over the past four years seizing some 33 million fake Pfizer tablets and enough ingredients to manufacture an additional 55.6 million tablets. As of last December, authorities have discovered counterfeit versions of Pfizer drugs such as Lipitor and Viagra in at least 75 countries. Counterfeits of seven Pfizer drug brands have turned up in legitimate supply chains in at least 25 countries.

Mr. Fibig was joined yesterday by the vice chairman of GE, Robert Wright, and the chairman of pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis, Jean-François Dehecq. The U.S. trade representative, Susan Schwab, met with the executives earlier yesterday morning and agreed to move forward with efforts to ratify ACTA by the end of this year.

The treaty would be the first global agreement on standards for battling counterfeiting rings. “The objective here is for global industry to align forces with governments of the world to combat piracy,” Mr. Wright said.

“Fake medicine has become one of the most favorite activities of the organized crime world,” Mr. Fibig said. “It’s a low-risk, high-reward proposition because of the ease of making tablets that are indistinguishable from the authentic versions. That’s why these counterfeits are beginning to turn up in legitimate supply chains.”

Some 80% of European seizures in counterfeited products come from China, the secretary general of the World Customs Organization, Michel Danet, said. Although piracy operations in China continue to lead the world, members of the International Chamber of Commerce said that certain crimes — especially the counterfeiting of medicines and the piracy of digital motion picture recordings — have become commonplace in Southeast Asia, India, and Africa as well.

“Counterfeit medicine shouldn’t exist as a problem that only the northern, developed countries of the world address,” Mr. Dehecq said.

Pfizer’s Mr. Fibig said medicine counterfeiting is relatively new, and it first came to light in two of the world’s richest nations. In 1999, the company found fake Viagra in Britain, and in 2003, fake Lipitor was discovered in the legitimate American supply chain.

In nearly every counterfeit Pfizer product the company has found, the fakes contained none of the ingredients contained in the authentic tablets.

“These are countries with strong regulatory systems,” Mr. Fibig said. “That’s why we’re concentrating on forging alliances with law enforcement and customs agencies as well.”