Community pharmacies involved in second medicine recall in two months
Mylan NZ, in conjunction with Medsafe, will be undertaking a voluntary recall of Respigen Inhalers (salbutamol)
distributed to patients between August and November 2009.
The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand (the Guild) is pleased that Mylan NZ has recognised the role that community pharmacies
play in the recall of medicines and the costs that pharmacists incur.
“Medsafe and Mylan have worked out the details of the recall without consulting pharmacy,” says Annabel Young, CE of the
Guild. “We would have preferred they came to us in the first instance to work out the best way to deal with the recall,
without placing further burden on pharmacies.
“This is the second recall in two months after GlaxoSmithKline’s 28 January Consumer Level medicine recall of Marevan
(warfarin) 3mg tablets. Community pharmacists’ primary concern is patient safety and we will step up to the call by
using our own time to ensure this situation is resolved swiftly.
“However, there is no sector agreement around how pharmacy is to be recompensed for medicine recalls.”
Mylan have communicated to pharmacies that they will be distributing 10 units of Respigen to each pharmacy that have to
deal with returned Respigen as a way of recompensing their work. “This system is problematic as each pharmacy will have
differing numbers of patients affected and therefore different levels of work to be done.
“Community pharmacies don’t operate on a barter service. Pharmacists just want to recover their costs. If a pharmacist
doesn’t need to dispense the medication to other patients what are they to do with the free units?
“In the absence of a sector agreement on medicine recalls, this should not be taken as a precedent.”
According to information received from Mylan, the recall is a precautionary measure after quality control procedures
identified a small number of inhalers from the batch were found to have quantities of salbutamol outside of the
specification. As a consequence the inhaler may deliver doses inconsistent with the label. This recall is isolated to
the batch in question.
ENDS