Lincare Rx settles with pharmacy board
By HME News Staff
Updated Mon June 30, 2003
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Med4Home, a large respiratory pharmacy owned by Lincare, has agreed to correct the problems that led to a contaminated batch of meds the company recalled improperly, according to the State Board of Pharmacy.
As part of the May settlement agreement, the pharmacy must allow the board full access to the company's facilities, allow full access to pharmacy records and correct quality-control inadequacies that lead to the contaminated medications, said Kevin Kinkade, executive director of the Missouri Board of Pharmacy. Also as part of the settlement, Med4Home cannot begin compounding without giving the pharmacy board 30 days notice.
As of press time, that had not happened.
In January, two batches of albuterol/ipratropium - 1,377,142 doses - tested positive for microbial contamination. One of the batches tested positive for Burkholderia cepacia, a pathogen that is prone to attacking lungs, according to court documents.
Med4Home suspected only a portion of the vials containing the drugs were contaminated, estimating that 2,500 patients may have received the bad meds. As such, it did not recall all the drugs. The state argued that since Med4Home could not prove that all the drugs weren't contaminated, both batches should have been recalled.
Nobody who received the contaminated drugs has complained of sickness, Kinkade said. HME
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