After a tornado damaged one of the largest sterile injectable drug manufacturing facilities in the world, Pfizer predicted the Rocky Mount, N.C., plant will be producing again in the next few months.
On July 19, an EF-3 tornado swept through the site that manufactured 25 percent of Pfizer's sterile injectables used by hospitals and supplied 8 percent of the market share for U.S. hospitals' injectable drugs. The tornado mainly hit the warehouse section rather than the production side, meaning drug supply disruption could have been worse.
Parts of the plant reopened Aug. 7 and multiple areas are operational, including quality laboratories and processes, packaging and inspection, and supply chain and warehouse.
"There are many sequential steps and variables to restart operations, and Pfizer is making significant progress," the drugmaker said in an Aug. 28 letter. "Pfizer anticipates production to restart by Q4 2023."
After the natural disaster, Pfizer listed 65 drugs most at risk of new or worsened shortages and corralled 12 drugs on its emergency order list to prevent hoarding. Another warehouse has been secured, according to the letter.
The North Carolina plant is 1.4 million square feet and annually made nearly 400 million products, including solutions of anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers.