CVS Pharmacy to Pull Common Cold Decongestant From Shelves

Last month, an FDA advisory panel found that drugs with phenylephrine as the only active ingredient weren’t effective, but not unsafe.

People walk by a CVS pharmacy store in New York on Nov. 17, 2021. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

U.S. pharmacy chain CVS said Thursday that it will no longer sell some of the most common cold and cough medicines with phenylephrine as the only active ingredient.

After a two-day review last month, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) panel of advisers deemed the common over-the-counter (OTC) ingredient as “not effective as a nasal decongestant.”