HERES ONE WE ARE ALL GOING TO LOSE SOME HAIR FROM,
Today i receved a letter from Amphastar, IMS. that they are going to stop selling emergency syringes also know as critical care syringes ie: atropine, dextrose, epinephrine, sod bicarbonate, lidocaine, calcium chloride. these are the ones we use in our crash carts. if i am not wrong that will leave hospira as the only company left to make these syringes. wonder if this will be our next big shortage problem for next year. if you need more info on this call amphastar and they will fax you a letter on what they are up to... good luck to us all on this one. have a great thanksgiving everyone may all be happy and well and be with family. stay well..... sandy
I heard this about a month ago, but was/am still able to get IMS from Cardinal. What is IMS thinking??? They and Hospira are both on my GPO contract and even though IMS costs slightly more, I buy them for a couple of reasons: 1)they give credit for outdates (Hospira doesn't) and 2)they are WAY more reliable than Hospira has been.
With Hospira's increasing inability to supply everything from Amidate to vanco, I have little, if no, expectation that they will be able to meet the increased demand for emergency syringes. Maybe we should all stock up on vials!!!
I second the good wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I know I have so much to be grateful for.
What I really want to say here is unprintable so I will settle for a general statement: WHY if we have the safest drug supply in the world due to the FDA, are so many critical drugs being allowed to just be dicontinued? This would include the ongoing problems with erythromycin opth. ointment, now the stat medications, the allocated supply of anything related to flu, an entire year's hit and miss of most Hospira carpujects and so forth. This has been quite a year to learn by and these posts have helped me tremendously... Thanks for all the help, and good luck to us all!
Maybe this is a situation in which all pharmacy buyers assert themselves and use the leverage we aspire to as an organized group and contact IMS to let them know of our displeasure at the discontinuation of emergency syringes and to urge them to seriously reconsider that decision.
THEN, we need to support them if they reverse themselves.
I'll send an email today to my IMS rep.
To me this is a real opportunity to show manufacutrers that we, as buyers, can have a major impact on the pharmaceutical world.
Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (IMS) is discontinuing 23 products due to the FDA requirement of filing a new drug application or abbreviated new drug application for these “grandfathered drugs,” effective December 31, 2009. The reason for discontinuing these products are not due to safety or efficacy therefore, products that are already in the distribution chain are safe and can continue to be used. Please see the Generic Updates attachment for specifics on the products and pricing. (Acute, Non-Acute, LTC, Managed Care, and Retail).
Hospira has not yet received any notification from the FDA to discontinue any of their emergency syringe product lines at this time. They have been proactively working with the FDA to bring their products into compliance and do not anticipate it will result in a product shortage. Amphastar currently represents approximately 30 percent of the emergency syringe market, so it will take Hospira several weeks to be able to fully supply Amphastar’s current customer base long-term.
We want to thank all the posters here on our Pharmacy Buyer Forum, who kept everyone apprised of this situation.
PPO requested an official statement regarding the Emergency Syringe situation with Amphastar. Their response and the complete list of products to be discontinued effective December 31, 2009 is on the Subscriber-Only Resources page of our website, (www.PharmacyPurchasing.com), in a new section for “Breaking News on Recalls & Discontinued Products (from PPO).”