2023-09-05 17:53:32
A bit of reprieve for the old formula of Levothyrox. Its distribution will be extended in France in 2024 and 2025, the German laboratory Merck, which manufactures this treatment designed for thyroid problems, told AFP on Tuesday. At the request of the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM), “Merck has just agreed to extend these imports once more, still temporarily, in 2024 and 2025 (…)”, according to a group statement.
A “huge relief” for “regarding 100,000 patients who continued to use it every day” and who “feared that it would disappear”, welcomed the French Association of Thyroid Patients (AFMT) in a press release. At the same time, Merck emphasizes “the need for healthcare professionals to support patients in finding the long-lasting treatment that best suits them, in order to anticipate the day when this old formula will no longer be available at all”.
Transition
The laboratory recalls “that these transitional imports are made from batches intended for the last countries that have not yet switched to the new formula of the drug and manufactured in a manner strictly identical to the old formula of Levothyrox, i.e. say Germany then Russia until 2023 then Argentina from the end of this year”.
The distribution of the old formula, imported since the end of 2017 under the name of Euthyrox and which was to stop in 2020, has been extended several times, once morest the backdrop of a legal battle over the new formula, which uses the same active ingredient. , levothyroxine, but with new excipients. Between March 2017 and April 2018, some 31,000 patients suffering from headaches, insomnia, dizziness and other side effects had blamed the new formula. According to Merck, more than 18 million patients in Europe are treated daily with the new Levothyrox formula.
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