Alli bottles tampered with in US, drug recalled
pharmafile | March 27, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | Alli, FDA, GSK, Roche, Xenical, obesity, weight loss
GlaxoSmithKline has admitted that some bottles of its weight-loss drug Alli bought in the US have been tampered with.
US drugs regulator the FDA is now investigating the case after consumers reported that some bottles bought in stores across seven US states contained products other than the drug.
The company says the affected bottles were found in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina and Texas.
GSK adds in a statement that the affected bottles could contain tablets and capsules ‘of different shapes and colours’, when the actual drug is turquoise.
The bottles could also be unlabelled and the lot numbers might not match the numbers on the carton, it adds. The company did not say if any consumers had taken pills from the bottles or if it was considering a recall.
“Consumers should not use the product if the authentic Alli features […] are not present,” GSK says. It is appealing to consumers for help with its investigation and asks that customers who think they bought a fake Alli product – contact its customer relations line.
It is not unusual for pharma companies’ medicines to be tampered with. In 2011, Reckitt Benckiser’s painkiller product Nurofen Plus was found to contain AstraZeneca’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel (quetiapine) after being purchased in London.
Alli (orlistat), which is sold by GSK’s consumer healthcare business, is approved for use without a prescription for overweight adults, in conjunction with a low-fat diet.
It is a less potent, over-the-counter version of Xenical (orlistat), which is sold by Roche.
Recall
Since the story broke on Wednesday 26 March, GlaxoSmithKline has now announced that it is in fact recalling all supplies of Alli in the US and Puerto Rico.
The London-based firm says it believes that some US bottles of Alli may not contain the authentic product, and adds that it is now working with the FDA on the ‘retailer-level recall’.
Ben Adams
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