Mark Baum’s self-serving op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (New Prescription for Lower Drug Prices) that compounded-drug makers can bring inexpensive, off-patent medicines to market, “if the FDA will let them” omits a key issue in the debate – public safety.
Just last week, two Alabama pharmacists agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges in connection with the 2011 deaths of nine Birmingham-area patients who allegedly received a contaminated compounded drug.
According to federal prosecutors, the drugs were contaminated from being prepared, packed or held in unsanitary conditions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the same bacteria on a water faucet in an open container of amino acid powder, and on the surface of mixing equipment that had been used to make the drug, according to federal prosecutors.
Also last week, Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said she has ruled out the use of compounding to combat spikes in generic drug prices.
Woodcock told the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee that "there are very great risks" from FDA allowing mass production of compounded drugs to reduce the cost of a generic drug. Woodcock said that while recent legislation gives FDA additional power to enforce quality standards on pharmacies that compound sterile injectable drugs, FDA has limited oversight authority over compounding of tablets and pills. She said FDA has recently withdrawn compounded vitamin and hormone products after pharmacies distributed potentially fatal super-potent formulations.
Despite Mr. Baum’s rosy commercial projections, compounded drugs may be sub- or super potent, contaminated, or otherwise adulterated. Additional health risks include the possibility that patients will use ineffective compounded drugs instead of FDA-approved drugs that have been shown to be safe and effective.
His company, Imprimis, has had challenges with its compounding facilities in New Jersey and Southern California, both of which have been issued letters from the FDA citing Common Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) violations that could call into question the safety and effectiveness of the drugs compounded there.
Putting price before patient safety is bad medicine and worse policy
