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Drug company should have addressed shortage sooner: de Jong

British Columbia Health Minister Michael de Jong criticized a Quebec pharmaceutical company for failing to take steps to deal with a shortage of widely used drugs sooner.

In a Feb. 16, 2012 letter to customers, Sandoz Canada warned there will be disruptions to the supply of some products. Those products include injectable narcotics like morphine, hydromorphone and fentanyl which are commonly used to treat moderate to severe pain for people after surgery or with cancer, a B.C. government statement said.

B.C. minister de Jong said, "It is unfortunate in my view that the company chose to . . . make decisions that related solely to their concern with the American market and have made decisions that have had negative consequences for Canadian patients and have waited as long as they did to begin the process of fulfilling their contractual obligations to identify alternate suppliers."

The province is working with other provinces and the federal government to find alternative sources and to share supplies of existing stocks, he said.

"It's important patients in B.C. know what the situation is and they have the confidence to know they're going to have the health care they require," said de Jong. "The information I've received is no one has been impacted thus far and I'm not aware of any pending impacts."

There is a possibility that some elective surgeries will need to be rescheduled, he said.

Sandoz' letter says the supply interuption was caused by retooling at its Boucherville plant, which it was doing in response to a warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. B.C.'s de Jong said a fire last week at a Sandoz warehouse had caused further problems.

"Our objective is to restore normal levels of supply as soon as possible," said Sandoz' letter. "Our patients always have been and will continue to be our priority."

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Find him on Twitter or reach him here.


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