Mylan extends recall as stray tablets of diabetes med show up in bottles of an antidepressant

Some weeks back, generics maker Mylan recalled about 1,300 bottles, containing more than 1.3 million tablets, of the 5-mg dose of the Type 2 diabetes med Glipizide. The recall was voluntarily initiated because there was a chance that tablets in a 10-mg dose might have gotten into the bottles. Now the drugmaker has issued two more recalls of an entirely different med that might also contain some of the stray tablets.

According to the FDA Enforcement reports, Mylan has recently included in the class II voluntary recall 37,445 bottles of 500-count and 1,000-count tablets of Mirtazapine, as well as 58, blister packs of the drug in in 100-count sizes because they may contain Glipizide tablets. Mirtazapine is an antidepressant.

According to the FDA report, the drugs were all manufactured by Mylan at its facility in Morgantown, West Virginia.

While not common, this kind of issue does arise on packaging lines. In 2014, for example, Pfizer recalled 221,000 bottles of Pristiq after a single 100-mg tablet of the antidepressant was found in a 50-mg bottle.

Months before, Pfizer recalled more than 100,000 bottles of its antidepressant Effexor XR after a bottle was found to contain a tablet of the heart drug Tikosyn. The drugmaker said the risk that any other bottles might be affected was slim, but it decided to recall the three lots of Effexor XR as a precaution since all three were run on the same packaging line.