Vencamil (branded) vs. Aristo levothyroxine (generic)

[helvella]

Aristo in the UK have decided that supplying both versions of their product is unsupportable.

This has caused confusion in distribution and prescribing and dispensing.

(Despite the UK having dealt with Eltroxin and Mercury Pharma levothyroxine for many years!)

Hence, they are stopping the generic Aristo levothyroxine.

As soon as they announced this, Alliance decided they would not accept ANY generic deliveries and removed the PIP code from their systems.

However, there is a reasonable amount in stock which will continue to be distributed until it runs out. Therefore, other pharmacies (which do not reply on Alliance) will continue to get supplied with generic Aristo levothyroxine.

[Jaydee1507 Administrator]

I'm not 100% sure which warehouse my most local chemist uses but I had a real drama getting my last Vencamil prescription. I believe they do use the Alliance distributor, its an Medipharmacy chemist.

They asked me to leave 3 days before I collected the medicines as they had to order them in (used to be next afternoon). When I went back they had everything else except the Vencamil and couldn't find out what had happened to it or if they could get it for another 2 days.

Apparently if they can't fulfill the pescription off the shelves then it goes to a warehouse where its all packed up in a sealed plastic wrapping, presumably picked by a bot , hence the 72 hour delay.

Anyway so I headed off to my more usual independent chemist with a second prescription from the GP a distance away and they had Vencamil on the shelf. <3

This is the price of progress.

Edited to add they use Phoenix supply hub.

[TiggerMe Ambassador in reply to Jaydee1507]

I had a similar experience this week, luckily today I had a rather more useful pharmacy assistant who dug a little deeper and explained Alliance have wiped the generic brand from their system and she could only order Vencamil..... still waiting for the call back to see if that has been successful.... my script does say both so why it has taken 3 failed attempts 🤷‍♀️

🍄 has used his contacts to get to the bottom of it! 👏👏 So at least we now know what the latest game play is 🙃

[HealthStarDust]

I thought Aristo and Vencamil are one of the same anyway?

Surely the pharmacy can just dispense Vencamil instead? Honestly, I despair with how hard they make managing our health!