The plant employs 4500 people. It provides 30% of drugs to the US. This will cause an impact for sure. Like hurricane Maria and IV solution. This will create some shortages and drive cost up to some degree

Link?

Whew. Heavy damage appears to be an understatement looking at the photos.

"...which is was one of the largest sterile injectable product facilities in the world, ..."

Uh-oh.

Vaccines and injectable therapeutics.

Sarcasm on. "Give it a Viagra and it'll be back up in a flash." Sarcasm off

Seriously. That's going to be bad for all of the employees and patients that rely on the medication produced there.

Never really thought tornadoes would be such a problem in NC. It is sad and amazing the damage they can cause. Hopefully, they will get back on their feet shortly.

My big kid lives in Rocky Mount. He called yesterday evening and told us about the plant. Mrs. Mike used to work at food distribution center there in Rocky Mount. The Pfizer plant is north of the town and is a huge facility.

It was very fortunate that no one got hurt.

That's a big plant...with big capacity...and employs a lot of people.

This absolutely will effect health care on the national level. For what I would say could be 6-18 months.

quote:

Originally posted by 1flynDO:
This absolutely will effect health care on the national level. For what I would say could be 6-18 months.

quote:

The fallout from a Pfizer factory being damaged by a tornado could put even more pressure on already-strained drug supplies at U.S. hospitals, experts say.

Wednesday's tornado touched down near Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and ripped up the roof of a Pfizer factory that makes nearly 25% of Pfizer's sterile injectable medicines used in U.S. hospitals, according to the drugmaker.

Pfizer said all employees were safely evacuated and accounted for, and no serious injuries were reported. The drugmaker is still assessing damage.

Here’s a closer look at the possible effects.

WHAT ARE STERILE INJECTABLES?

The North Carolina plant produces drugs that are injected or through an IV.

The plant makes drugs for anesthesia, medicines that treat infections and drugs needed for surgeries. The latter are used in surgeries or intensive care units for patients who are placed on ventilators, said Mike Ganio, who studies drug shortages at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

The Pfizer site does not make or store the company's COVID-19 vaccine or treatments Comirnaty and Paxlovid."

Oh, this is going to suck. The propofol shortage a few years back was bad enough. This looks to be a lot worse.

quote:

Originally posted by patw:
Never really thought tornadoes would be such a problem in NC. It is sad and amazing the damage they can cause. Hopefully, they will get back on their feet shortly.

Tornadoes are a constant threat in NC.

I spent over 20 years as a major supplier for that very plant. I retired in 2021 and over the years came to know many of the workers there. I called and checked on a few of them yesterday. The plant makes many life saving drugs. Amazingly no loss of life, but lots of damage. Very likely to be disruptions in the supply chain.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by 1flynDO:
This absolutely will effect health care on the national level. For what I would say could be 6-18 months.

Oh, this is going to suck. The propofol shortage a few years back was bad enough. This looks to be a lot worse.

If one plant going down from a non-rare weather event is going to be that seriously disruptive to national healthcare, perhaps this is a good opportunity to redistribute some of the production to decentralized facilities, so that no single event in one location can have such a massive negative nationwide effect.

Put the eggs in more than one basket, so to speak.

They have a sister plant in Austin TX. Not sure if they do exactly the same products now or not. Also there are some competitors who make similar products. But this is a very large plant and a big piece of the puzzle. Best wishes for all affected.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by 1flynDO:
This absolutely will effect health care on the national level. For what I would say could be 6-18 months.

Oh, this is going to suck. The propofol shortage a few years back was bad enough. This looks to be a lot worse.

If one plant going down from a non-rare weather event is going to be that seriously disruptive to national healthcare, perhaps this is a good opportunity to redistribute some of the production to decentralized facilities, so that no single event in one location can have such a massive negative nationwide effect.

Put the eggs in more than one basket, so to speak.

Your point is valid, but that is a private sector business decision, with multiple angles to analyze it, and a national shortage variable in their calculations is probably pretty low on their list of importance. Interestingly, that crinkled up roof looked a little cheap to me, but what do I know about large factories. I'm wondering if that location is a known secondary level of a hurricane alley, as far as the eastern states are concerned.

With that particular plant, I'd bet they were sufficiently insured via their risk mitigation department(s).

I hope their full time salaried, and full time permanent hourly employees will be 100% compensated during the necessary furlough. Being a pharmaceutical, I would imagine they will be.

From looking at the damage done to the facility that the down time for this facility IF the decision to rebuild then it will be a long time frame maybe at least a year if not more because of all of the federal guidelines for pharma production even if some of the production can be moved to other sister facilities............................... drill sgt.

The drugs at risk are narcotics and paralytic medication for anesthesia and EM. They stopped taking orders for meds prior to the press release.

This is a really big deal for the Anesthesia world.

Our pharmacist hadn't heard about it until I asked him about it this morning. Did a little digging and got a letter back from them stating that "only" roughly 25% of anesthesia related meds are made there and they are unsure, as yet, what areas of the factory (which meds) will be affected. Until then, other facilities are ramping up 125-300% production.

Hopefully this won't hurt too bad, but I suspect that we'll need to be getting creative.