Pfizer and government agencies continue to assess the impact of the damage caused to Pfizer's manufacturing facility in Rocky Mount, N.C. after a violent tornado swept through the town Wednesday, July 19. A customer letter and Pfizer press release indicates that the primary impact of the tornado was to the warehouse facility, which stores raw materials, packaging supplies and finished medicines awaiting release by quality assurance. According to Pfizer's website, the Rocky Mount plant is one of the largest sterile injectable facilities in the world, with more than 1.4 million square feet of facility space on 250 acres in Eastern North Carolina. Nearly 25% of Pfizer's sterile injectables, which is approximately 8% of all sterile injectables used in US hospitals, are manufactured at this plant. Pfizer manufactures products across many categories at this plant including anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers.
Vizient's Drug Shortages Rapid Response Team includes subject matter experts from various areas such as clinical, analytics, sourcing and communications. They continue to actively work with various industry stakeholders, including supplier and distributor partners, and End Drug Shortages Alliance to identify the current potential impact on drug supply as a result of this natural disaster. Vizient's Market Disruption Brief provides the most up to date information on current conditions, Vizient's response, call to action for members, distributor actions and Pfizer contact information. Vizient also has provided a Supply Chain Disruption Report, which includes a market analysis of the subset of products provided by Pfizer with less than three months of inventory in the distribution channels. Additionally, the report contains available mitigation strategies for several of the affected products, if needed due to the potential supply constraint. Vizient continues to encourage hospitals and health systems to exercise the principles of drug shortage stewardship in responding to the impacted facility.