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Pfizer Tornado Damage Threatens Tenuous US Drug Supply Chain

  • Company is the largest US supplier of generic injectable drugs
  • Drug shortages recently hit highest level in nearly a decade

The damaged Pfizer plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on July 19.

Source: WTVD/AP

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Hospital drug buyers are scrambling to figure out how tornado damage at a major Pfizer Inc. manufacturing facility will affect the availability of medicines across the country at a time of record-high drug shortages.

Healthcare service providers Premier Inc. and Vizient Inc. said they are working with other drugmakers to see who can ramp up production. Vizient is encouraging drug distributors to carefully manage their inventory. Before a tornado struck the Rocky Mount, North Carolina Pfizer plant on Wednesday, hundreds of medicines were already in short supply across the country, including cancer drugs, antibiotics, and ADHD treatments.