Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' ($TEVA) Cephalon has recalled one lot of leukemia drug Treanda after glass fragments were found in one of the vials.
FDA-approved labeling for Treanda states that the product, lot TB30111, is manufactured by Teva's Dutch subsidiary, Pharmachemie BV, the Israeli online news service Globes reported. Israel-based Teva acquired Pennsylvania-based Cephalon in October for $6.8 billion.
Wholesalers, distributors, hospitals and providers have been notified. Cephalon has not received reports of an adverse event and a Teva spokeswoman said the company does not believe that much of the lot remains in stock.
The recall was only one of several factors that weighed on the stock price of the world's largest maker of generic pharmaceuticals, Bloomberg Business News reported. Teva shares declined 2.7 percent Jan. 29, the biggest slump since Dec. 29, to the equivalent of $44.84, at the 4:30 p.m. close in Tel Aviv. The U.S.-traded shares closed at $44.91 on Jan. 27. The Tel Aviv shares are up 9.5 percent this year, compared with a 3.2 percent gain for the benchmark TA-25 Index.
Other factors affected the decline in stock as well. Last week, a U.S. federal court ruling cleared the way for competitor Watson Pharmaceuticals ($WPI) to sell a generic version of Sanofi's blood thinner Lovenox, a drug for which Teva also is seeking to market a copy.
Also depressing investor enthusiasm, according to analysts, was a Medicaid rule issued Jan. 27 that will raise the rebates drugmakers pay each time their products are dispensed to Medicaid patients in the U.S. Rebates will rise to 13 percent from 11 percent for generic-drug manufacturers.
- read Globes' story
- here's the FDA recall
- get the Bloomberg story