Shortage of Nitroglycerin Pills for Heart Patients Is Seen Easing

A nationwide shortage of nitroglycerin pills, a common heart medicine, should ease during the next two weeks as its maker resumes production, company officials said Thursday.

Many drugstores are cleaned out of the medicine, called Nitrostat, the primary treatment for angina attacks.

Manufacturer Warner-Lambert Co. attributed the shortage to manufacturing difficulties at its plant in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

“We see this being largely resolved in the next several days,” spokesman Peter Wolf said. “Most orders will be filled within a week. We are sprinting to fix the situation.”

Around the country, some stores have had to turn away customers who wanted to refill prescriptions.

“A lot of our stores are out,” said Rachelle Goto, assistant vice president for pharmacy purchasing at the Rite Aid chain, based in Harrisburg, Pa.

“It’s been a little hairy,” she said. “I don’t know what the doctors are doing for an alternative, because there is not any viable alternative available.”

Nitrostat is the only brand of nitroglycerin tablet on the market. Heart patients put the pills under their tongues to relieve chest pain.

While many heart patients wear nitroglycerin skin patches, they are not intended for acute attacks. The only other kind of nitroglycerin available for chest pain is a spray that costs about four times more than the tablets.

“We’re having big problems,” said Paul Schiavi, pharmaceutical buyer at the Perry Drug Stores chain in Pontiac, Mich. “We’re just saying: ‘It’s on back order. Come back next week.’ ”

Wolf said he knew of no deaths or other “adverse events” from the shortage.

He blamed the shortage on problems with switching to a new machine that molds tablets. This disrupted production for about six weeks.

Wolf added that the Nitrostat shortage was not related to a recall of eight other Warner-Lambert drugs produced at two Puerto Rican plants.

Hundreds of lots are being recalled of the anxiety medicine Centrax, the anti-migraine drug Ergostate, estrogen replacement Estovis, oral contraceptive Norlestrin, progestins Norlutin and Norlutate, urinary analgesic Pyridium and asthma drug Tedral.

Wolf would not say which products would be discontinued or why.

The recall followed a Food and Drug Administration investigation that began in 1991, said Stephanie Gray, who directs the 80-member FDA office in San Juan.