Tornado That Hit Pfizer Facility Unlikely to Cause Major Drug Supply Shortages: FDA

The Pfizer plant is damaged after severe weather passed the area in Rocky Mount, N.C., on July 19, 2023. (WTVD via AP)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) indicated it didn’t expect major shortages in drug manufacturing after a tornado hit a Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina on Wednesday.

“We do not expect there to be any immediate significant impacts on supply given the products are currently at hospitals and in the distribution system,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said Friday.

He added that the FDA’s initial analysis identified fewer than 10 drugs for which Pfizer’s North Carolina plant is the sole source for the U.S. market.

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer said Friday that most of the damage from the tornado was inflicted on the storage and not the manufacturing area of the plant.

“Most of the damage was caused to the warehouse facility, which stores raw materials, packaging supplies, and finished medicines awaiting release by quality assurance. Pfizer is working diligently to move product to other nearby sites for storage and to identify sources to replace damaged raw materials and supplies,” the company announced.

Debris is scattered around the Pfizer facility in Rocky Mount, N.C., after damage from severe weather, on July 19, 2023. (Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP)

“Pfizer is also exploring alternative manufacturing locations for production across our significant manufacturing presence in the U.S. and internationally and across the company’s partner network. After an initial assessment, there does not appear to be any major damage to the medicine production areas.”

The drugmaker’s ability to salvage production equipment and other essential materials could mitigate what experts feared would trigger further shortages in the United States, which is already struggling with existing drug shortages.

An EF-3 tornado moved through the Rocky Mount area and tore off the roof of the Pfizer plant and inflicted other damage there on Wednesday. Pfizer said that all its local 3,200 Pfizer employees are “safe and accounted for.”

The Rocky Mount plant, which spans 1.4 million square feet, is responsible for producing some 25 percent of all of Pfizer’s sterile injectables used in U.S. hospitals—or nearly 8 percent of all sterile injectables used in U.S. hospitals. This includes anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives, and neuromuscular blockers.

The plant does not make or store Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, or the Comirnaty and Paxlovid treatments.

Mr. Califf said that in the coming days, the FDA will complete a more extensive evaluation of the products that might be affected and the current domestic supply of those medications. “Many weeks’ worth” of the destroyed drugs should be available in Pfizer’s other warehouses, he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.