Tornado Knocks Out 25% of Pfizer’s Injectables Capacity, May Affect Drug Shortages

A tornado with winds of 150 mph slammed into Pfizer’s enormous drug manufacturing plant in Nash County, N.C., on July 19, knocking out the facility that makes 25 percent of the company’s injectable medications.

It’s not clear how long the plant will be out of commission, but the damage is likely to exacerbate the U.S.’s ongoing drug shortage problem, Wayne Pines, senior director of APCO Worldwide, told FDAnews.

“The shortages that we are likely to face from the Pfizer plant shutdown indicate how fragile our drug supply is,” Pines told FDAnews. “Shortages have been plaguing the country for many years now without a systematic solution. The prices that companies can charge are not adequate to assure a reliable supply of certain essential drugs. We need to treat drug shortages as a national emergency and address the pricing and manufacturing issues aggressively.”

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