FDA Acts to Halt Marketing of Unapproved Prescription Narcotic Drugs
The Food and Drug Administration recently warned nine companies to stop manufacturing 14 unapproved narcotic drugs that are marketed in several dosage forms and are widely used to treat pain.
FDA's warning letters notified the companies they may be subject to enforcement action if they do not stop manufacturing and distributing prescription unapproved products that include high concentrate morphine sulfate oral solutions and immediate release tablets containing morphine sulfate, hydromorphone, or oxycodone. This action does not include oxycodone capsules.
Those companies receiving warning letters are Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc., Columbus, Ohio; Cody Laboratories Inc., Cody, Wyo.; Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc., Mahwah, N.J.; Lannett Company Inc., Philadelphia; Lehigh Valley Technologies Inc., Allentown, Pa.; Mallinckrodt Inc. Pharmaceuticals Group, St. Louis; Physicians Total Care Inc., Tulsa, Okla.; Roxane Laboratories Inc., Columbus, Ohio; and Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc., Newport, Ky.
The warning letters are part of FDA's initiative on marketed unapproved drugs announced in June 2006. At that time, the agency published a compliance policy guide describing its risk-based enforcement approach against illegally marketed unapproved drugs.
"Consumers have a right to expect that their drugs meet the FDA's safety and effectiveness standards," said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). "Doctors and patients are often unaware that not all drugs on the market are backed by FDA approval. It is a high priority for the FDA to remove these products from the market because they may be unsafe, ineffective, inappropriately labeled, or of poor quality."
Manufacturers have 60 days to stop manufacturing these products. Distributors have 90 days to stop shipping existing products. Previously manufactured products may still be found on pharmacy shelves for a short time.
To view copies of the Warning Letters, the names of the companies and their affected products, see the FDA's Unapproved Drugs Web page at www.fda.gov/cder/drug/unapproved_drugs/enforcement.htm#narcotics.