Category Archives: Pharmacy

By The Associated Press LAKE MARY, Fla. - A Florida-based compounding pharmacy is voluntarily recalling all lots of its sterile non-expired drug products sold nationwide over concerns the products are not sterile and may contain bacteria, Food and Drug Administration officials said Sunday. The FDA encouraged health care facilities and providers who have received sterile products, including all injectables, from Balanced Solutions Compounding Pharmacy to immediately check their medical supplies, quarantine the products, and follow the company's recall instructions. Patients who were administered any sterile drug products produced and distributed by Balanced Solutions should contact their health care providers. The recall includes a few dozen sterile products furnished nationwide, according to a statement from the company. The majority of the products were injectable drugs. An FDA inspection of the company revealed "poor practices and conditions which may have exposed the company's sterile products to microbial contamination," officials said in a statement. The FDA sampled chromium chloride injections from Balanced Solutions and identified gram-negative bacteria in the product, which can cause disease and many types of infection. But officials said the bacteria do not usually cause infection in humans. Balanced Solutions is a division of Axium Healthcare Pharmacy Inc., which is … Continue reading →

6:37 PM Rep. Sharon Treat's bill seeks to avoid repeat of problems that plagued Mass. compounding pharmacy recently By Susan M. Cover scover@mainetoday.com State House Bureau AUGUSTA The deaths of 53 people after a nationwide meningitis outbreak linked to a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts has prompted a local lawmaker to put in a bill to strengthen regulations in Maine. click image to enlarge Pharmacy technician Suzanne Goddard works under a hood, preparing bags of intravenous medicines, in the sterile room on April 12 at Kennebec Pharmacy & Home Care in Augusta. Staff photo by Joe Phelan click image to enlarge Pharmacy technician Suzanne Goddard works under a hood, preparing intravenous bags of medicines, in the sterile room on April 12, at Kennebec Pharmacy & Home Care in Augusta. Staff photo by Joe Phelan "We need to make sure what happened at that Massachusetts pharmacy could never happen in Maine," said Rep. Sharon Anglin Treat, D-Hallowell. "One of the reasons we have these issues is we have no unified federal law to deal with compounding pharmacies." See the article here: Pharmacy safety bill goes to public hearing Monday … Continue reading →

LAKE MARY, Fla. (AP) -- A Florida-based compounding pharmacy is voluntarily recalling all lots of its sterile non-expired drug products sold nationwide over concerns the products are not sterile and may contain bacteria, Food and Drug Administration officials said Sunday. The FDA encouraged health care facilities and providers who have received sterile products, including all injectables, from Balanced Solutions Compounding Pharmacy to immediately check their medical supplies, quarantine the products, and follow the company's recall instructions. Patients who were administered any sterile drug products produced and distributed by Balanced Solutions should contact their health care providers. The recall includes a few dozen sterile products furnished nationwide, according to a statement from the company. The majority of the products were injectable drugs. An FDA inspection of the company revealed "poor practices and conditions which may have exposed the company's sterile products to microbial contamination," officials said in a statement. The FDA sampled chromium chloride injections from Balanced Solutions and identified gram-negative bacteria in the product, which can cause disease and many types of infection. But officials said the bacteria do not usually cause infection in humans. Balanced Solutions is a division of Axium Healthcare Pharmacy Inc., which is based in Lake … Continue reading →

1derful Wednesday | What Makes My Pharmacy Great | Renee Yvonne |Compound Pharmacy Marketing How do I differentiate my pharmacy from the others out there? Check out the video for my suggestions on how to do that Want to have your question answered on... By: Renee Moore … Continue reading →

Carrying a gun, a man walked into a Glendale pharmacy at noon Wednesday and handed a note over the counter. "Norco," it said, without elaboration. The robber's terse note referred to a prescription brand of painkiller containing hydrocodone. The two women working at Arianna Medical Pharmacy, who are both pregnant, handed over a 500-pill bottle, and the man left without speaking. "Nothing. Not one single word," said Carmen Sefyan, the business's pharmacist in charge. She said it was the first robbery in the two-plus years the business has been open. No one was hurt, and the robbery was over almost before they knew it. "It was like a total of a minute," Sefyan said. "Obviously they were in fear for their life. It was nerve-racking," said Sgt. Tom Lorenz, a Glendale police spokesman. The man was last seen in a dark car heading north on North Verdugo Road, possibly toward the 210 or 2 freeway. He's white, looked to be in his mid-30s and was described as 5 feet 10 or 11 inches and 175 to 190 pounds. Lorenz said such robberies have happened before at Glendale pharmacies. But he said addicts usually commit nonviolent crimes, either breaking into pharmacies … Continue reading →

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) - Thieves smashed their way into a business that an entire neighborhood counts on, but the owner of a Kansas City pharmacy is determined to keep helping his customers. Workers had to board up a hole in the wall of Spalitto's Pharmacy, located at Independence and Cleveland Avenue, after the destruction, but that won't stop its owner. He is the third generation of his family in the business and they're not about to let the damage stop him from serving his customers now. Spend any time with Pete Spalitto and people will quickly see it takes more than a hole in the wall to slow him down. "We're actually doing business," he said. "We're back to normal, everything's running fine. We've just got a lot of damage we've got to repair." Damage caught on surveillance video about 2:45 a.m. Thursday shows a white minivan backing into the business' side door twice before it bursts through the wall, sending prescription drugs flying. "Some of them bottles are $400 and $500 a bottle," Spalitto said. Add to that $60,000 to $80,000 to repair the wall and Spalitto's looking at a $100,000 loss. It's a huge sum compared to … Continue reading →

Quick links to other pages on this site | Still can't find it? see Site Index Staff report A man who robbed a Walgreens pharmacy in Summerville Tuesday first apologized to employees before demanding pills, police said. Police officers were dispatched to the pharmacy at 1120 N. Main St. concerning a robbery, an incident report states. Surveillance video showed a man walk into the store shortly before 6:30 p.m. wearing a black Planet Fitness shirt and dark shorts with white stripes down the sides, police said. Store employees did not notice the man at first, but told police they did remember seeing him walk into a bathroom. The robber came out of the bathroom a short while later and walked toward the pharmacy counter, police said. Im sorry to do this to you, the man said before demanding that the pharmacists hand him Opana and oxycodone within the next two minutes. He counted down aloud as the pharmacists grabbed three pill bottles, according to the incident report. The robber kept his left hand in his pocket as though he was holding a weapon, police said. The man apologized again before fleeing the store. Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers … Continue reading →

Student pharmacists from The Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo visited the State Capitol on Tuesday to deliver informational packets to legislators. Lawmakers are deliberating the fate of funding a permanent building for the college. UH says the accreditation of the college is at risk, which is being evaluated by committee members from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. The conference committee is the final hurdle for legislation before heading to state House and Senate floor votes in early May. The state Senate has included the $38 million needed for the building in its budget, but the House has not. The informational packets, including a CD with 1,000 letters of community support and petitions with 1,243 signatures, are a product of a group of community members called the Friends of The Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy Steering Committee, headed by Kelvin Sewake, a Hilo resident. "The community has really come out in full support of the College, and for that we are truly grateful," said Sewake, who also is the father of a student pharmacist. "The letters and petitions represent the hopes and dreams of the current pharmacy students as well as … Continue reading →

NuVision Pharmacy is voluntarily recalling all unexpired lots of lyophilized compounds HcG 5000IU-5ml and Sermorelin/GHRH6-5ml to the user level. The recall is being initiated due to a lack of sterility assurance and concerns associated with the quality control processes identified during the FDA inspection. In the event a sterile product is compromised patients are at risk for serious and possible life threatening infections. To date, NuVision Pharmacy has received no reports of injury or illness associated with the use of our sterile products. However, out of abundance of caution and in the interest of our patients, NuVision Pharmacy has decided to voluntarily proceed with this recall process. These products were supplied to the offices of licensed medical professionals. NuVision Pharmacys sterile products covered under this recall were distributed nationwide. NuVision Pharmacy is notifying its customers by fax or email to return the products to the pharmacy. Consumers or Health Care providers with questions regarding this recall may contact NuVision Pharmacy by phone at 800-914-7435 on Monday through Friday from the hours of 10 am to 6 pm CST, or by e-mail at pharmacist@nuvisionpharmacy.com. Patients who have received any product distributed by NuVision Pharmacy and have concerns should contact their healthcare … Continue reading →

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans said Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration should have acted years earlier to close the Massachusetts pharmacy responsible for a deadly meningitis outbreak tied to contaminated medications. A report issued by Republicans blasts the FDA for failing to act on years of complaints about problematic drugs and practices at the New England Compounding Center. The compounding pharmacy produced tainted pain injections that have sickened more than 700 Americans and killed 53 others. The wave of infections was first identified in September and grew into one of the deadliest medication-related outbreaks in U.S. history. The NECC halted operations in October and faces over 100 lawsuits in federal court. But more than half-year later, lawmakers in Washington continue to debate whether the public health crisis could have been prevented. Republicans on the House subcommittee investigating the outbreak said that the FDA should have closed the NECC based on complaints from doctors, patients, hospitals and drug distributors. The FDA first inspected the pharmacy in 2002 and issued a warning letter in 2006 for mass-producing copies of manufactured drugs. Beginning in 2007 and continuing through 2012 the FDA continued to receive complaints about the company from anonymous informants … Continue reading →