Mercaptopurine Manufacturers

Dan133269

Hello all,

Let me first say I am in no way whatsoever looking for medical advice.

I am just wondering do companies other than GlaxoSmithKline manufacture merpcaptopurine? Also referred to as 6 MP I believe. GSK give it the commercial name "Puri-Nethol." Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
Dan.

pharmacist

alchemy manufacture a liquid version 50mg/5mls but i think GKS are the only ones who manufacture the tablet form.

Nonoperational

Medisource can still get the GSK 6-MP but you'll pay 2 times over the odds for it. Another ridiculous stock shortage.

smtdos

gpf101 wrote: »

Medisource can still get the GSK 6-MP but you'll pay 2 times over the odds for it. Another ridiculous stock shortage.

Are the IMB doing enough about this? In the US the FDA are all over companies that run short of stock. It's an ever growing list now in Ireland, most qualified with 'manufacturer cannot provide return date'

Dan133269

Thanks for the replies people.

Smtdos, I didn't realise it was the same with lots of other medicines. What's the cause of all this do you know?

smtdos

Mergers and takeovers are one issue. Supply is slowing down as new staff/systems are put into place.

Following on from this, if a proprietary manufacturer is having supply issues, it puts huge pressure on the generic manufacturers who receive the surplus orders. These in turn run into shortages!

The second issue is parallel exporting. Irish wholesalers are finding it more profitable to export to European countries like Germany than sell to the local market. Hence there's less stock in the Irish system.

SpiderP

It's an absolute joke alright. Things like mycostatin going short, ridiculous. Noctamid is another one that springs to mind that recently caused havoc where I work when it was short ....

SomeDose

SpiderP wrote: »

....Noctamid is another one that springs to mind that recently caused havoc where I work when it was short ....

Out of curiosity, in what kind of scenario would a shortage of one specific (and very expensive) benzodiazepine cause havoc?

SpiderP

have quite a few elderly patients who are on it in a pharmacy I work, they couldn't quite understand the idea of a product being short (don't blame them) and consequently many simply thought we just weren't bothering our arses to order it for them. We had suggested changing to alt and informed local GPs but some of the patients were not impressed with this scenario, hence angry elderly people.