Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Comment regarding repackaging

It appears that Dr. Kliger, an ophthalmologist, wants to have repackaged compounded drugs (such as Avastin) included in this bill, to ensure that non-patient specific doses of compounded Avastin could be in his clinic, so he could inject them on any day, rather than waiting for a compounding pharmacy to send him a patient-specific prescription. There are a few flaws in Dr. Kliger's argument, however. 1. Perhaps "the best compounding pharmacy" for ophthalmic drugs, Leiter's, is located in his state of California. Prescriptions from a pharmacy in his state could arrive within one day, two days max, if expedited shipping is used. For chronic conditions such as macular degeneration (the condition that Avastin and Lucentis is used for), there is no urgency to inject "right away". It does make it more convenient to both the doctor and patient to have these drugs "on hand" in the doctor's office, and less expensive too (less shipping fees and/or waste due to unused product), but it is not a on Interesting article says drug safety bill puts urgent treatment in jeopardy. I thought bad compounders like necc who refuse to follow the rules cause far greater jeopardy

Kenneth Woliner, MD

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