Accord levothyroxine - supply clarification

[Tina_Maria]

There have been some queries regarding the availability of the Accord levothyroxine tablets 100 and 50mcg, so I thought I'd do some investigation to clarify this.

On the Accord website, levothyroxine tablets are still listed as 'status active' and the SmPC (Summary of Product Characteristics) has been updated in Feb last year. This means that the medicine is still in supply and available to patients:

accord-healthcare-products....

I also took the trouble to write to the medical information department at Accord Healthcare directly and asked about the supply of these medications. Here is the response:

Good morning,

Thank you for you enquiry.

I can see that the strengths of Levothyroxine you are enquiring about are currently available at the following wholesalers:

AAH

ALLIANCE

PHOENIX

We do not have visibility of the stock at pharmacy level.

Regards

Janet Greatbatch, Customer Service Co-Ordinator

Accord-UK Ltd, Whiddon Valley I Barnstaple I Devon I EX32 8NS (Registered No. 79585), (England and Wales)

Any pharmacy has the opportunity to source Accord levothyroxine through the above listed wholesalers.

So, if a pharmacy team or pharmacist try to tell you Accord levothyroxine is no longer available, you can tell them that they should get onto the wholesalers, who will be happy to supply them, if the patient needs the Accord brand due to tolerability issues!

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Thank you very much for getting this clarification

It should help many members who take Accord

[Tina_Maria in reply to SlowDragon]

No problem, it is always good to get to the bottom of things and check.

Besides, I absolutely hate being fobbed off, so this is an excellent come back if someone tries to tell us 🐷 - pies! 👍😂

[elaar]

Thanks for looking into it. I've been dumped onto 100mcg of Teva after 18 months of constant non-stop Accord. My stomach has a revolt on Teva.

[Tina_Maria in reply to elaar]

Teva - 😱😱😱🫣.... it seems to be the devils work for many!

A friend of mine has just been given Teva and she said she feels as rough as a bear's behind.... (her words!) 😅

[Tina_Maria in reply to elaar]

I was just thinking, if you had an adverse reaction to Teva, you should definitely file a yellow card report!

yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/

It is very importent that all side effects of a medication are reported. And the more people report that they do not tolerate Teva or have a reaction to it, maybe they will have a good hard think and change their formulation? There's hoping .....

[elaar in reply to Tina_Maria]

I don't think it's bad enough for that, it's not causing me any problems, it's just that I get a crazy hour of tuneful borborygmi sounds.

[Tina_Maria in reply to elaar]

I just had to look up the borborygmi sounds .... 😅

But even if you think it is not that bad, it is still an unusual reaction related to the medicine and should therefore be reported .... as they say, every little helps! 👍😉

[Ellie-Louise]

I wasn’t told they were unavailable, just that they couldn’t get hold of them.

“The pharmacy team have advised we are unable to obtain the ACCORD brand of Levothyroxine sodium 50microgram tablets”.

[Tina_Maria in reply to Ellie-Louise]

AAH is the biggest pharmacy wholesale supplier in the UK, followed by Alliance Healthcare, both of which currently have Accord levothyroxine in stock.

I would ask the pharmacy which wholesale supplier they have, and if they have items delivered by any of the three wholesalers mentioned above (and as the first two are the biggest, I am sure that they will have some of their items delivered by them). If they do, they can get hold of Accord levothyroxine through them as well.

And if they are not 'unavailable', why would they not be able to get hold of them? Sounds like a fishy excuse to me .... unable sounds a lot like do not want to or cannot be asked?

[Ellie-Louise in reply to Tina_Maria]

It’s online and I had my prescription put back onto the data base so I have my tablets now. Next time I order in 3 months it might all be back to normal.

[Tina_Maria in reply to Ellie-Louise]

Glad you have your tablets now - fingers crossed that it will go without a glitch the next time! 😉