FDA Aims to Avoid Injection-Bag Shortage Caused by Hurricane Maria

To avert a worsening shortage of Baxter Healthcare’s saline-solution injection bags, the FDA has helped ramp up imports from the company’s sites in Ireland and Australia to make up for production time lost at Baxter’s Puerto Rico factory due to Hurricane Maria, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said.

The agency also has worked to restore Baxter’s production in Puerto Rico and move supplies and products to and from the island in support of that effort, he said.

The FDA is taking steps with other Puerto Rican drug manufacturers to keep supplies flowing to customers across the U.S., Gottlieb said. And the agency is speeding up reviews and approvals of other dosage forms and generic versions of affected products to stave off shortages, he said.