State health officials issued cease-and-desist orders to 11 pharmacies and cited 21 others.
The crackdown, which hit all but eight of the known compounding pharmacies in the Bay State, was prompted by tainted spinal steroids produced at the now-shuttered New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. The contaminated drugs have been blamed for 45 deaths.NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- In the wake of a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak, Massachusetts regulators have shut down or cited 80 percent of the state's compounding pharmacies.
One of the firms named Tuesday, PharMerica, has facilities in Franklin, Knoxville and Memphis, according to Tennessee health licensing records. Based in Louisville, Ky., the firm also holds licenses to ship drugs into Tennessee from sites in Kentucky and Indiana. According to its website and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company provides pharmaceuticals to nursing homes and hospitals.
PharMerica was ordered to halt its sterile compounding operations in Massachusetts on Dec. 27 after the facility was found "non-compliant with facility design and controls and in its preparation of sterile medications," the Massachusetts Health Department said in a statement.
PharMerica officials did not respond late Tuesday to a request for comment.
The cease-and-desist order against the company's operations in Brockton, Mass., remains in effect although the company has submitted a plan of correction, department spokeswoman Anne Roach said.
After the Massachusetts action, Rhode Island officials inspected a PharMerica facility in that state and found unsterile conditions and unlicensed personnel performing as licensed technicians. They also found that compounding operations had been transferred from the closed Massachusetts facility without proper documentation. A cease-and-desist order on all sterile compounding was issued Jan. 10.
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