Rotech has announced that it will no longer make unapproved copies of some of its drugs and that patients taking the treatments will be switched over to brand-name therapies. Last week the FDA warned Rotech and two other companies (CCS Medical and Reliant Pharmacy Services) because some pharmacies have been making copies of branded drugs (the products made in these pharmacies aren't held to the strict manufacturing standards the FDA has laid out for pharma companies). Pharmacists are allowed to create drugs in a process called compounding, but the FDA stepped in because it was being done on a mass scale. "There is no demonstrated medical need for your compounding of these products that are essentially copies of commercially available drugs," the FDA said in its warning to Rotech.
- read this report from USA Today