SPI Pharmaceuticals Donates Vitamins to Kiev in Ukraine

Earlier this year, SPI Pharmaceuticals Inc. took its products to Eastern Europe when it formed ICN Galenika, a joint venture with a Yugoslav drug maker. The Costa Mesa pharmaceutical company is going abroad again, this time to donate vitamins to Kiev in the Ukraine.

SPI has donated more than 118,000 bottles of vitamins--worth about $570,000--to World Emergency Relief, a Carlsbad relief organization that provides food and medical supplies to needy countries. The vitamins will be shipped to Kiev this week and distributed through churches in the Ukrainian capital, said Kristy Scott, a World Emergency spokeswoman.

SPI previously has donated drugs to the Philippines and to some Latin American countries. The choice of Kiev is unrelated to the company’s Yugoslav venture, said Jack Sholl, an SPI spokesman.

“We let World Emergency Relief decide the locale,” Sholl said.

SPI is a subsidiary of ICN Pharmaceuticals, a Costa Mesa company.