The news just trickling in have made clear the fact that Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) has indeed received a grand jury subpoenas from the United State’s Justice Department in line with an antitrust investigation narrowing down on drug makers that market and sell the intravenous saline solutions.
The drugmaker has moved ahead to actually disclose the subpoenas and it was done through a statement made on Wednesday just shortly after the ICU Medical, Incorporated (NASDAQ:ICUI) which a short while back bought off Pfizer’s global infusion therapy business. In other news, Baxter International Inc (NYSE:BAX) gave a statement revealing that it had as a matter of fact been given similar subpoenas.
According to a number of the top trusted sources, ICU Medical had earlier on moved ahead to make a revelation that indicated that the probe related to the Hospira Infusion Systems was purchased in the month of February from the top provider, Pfizer and that was indeed following the merger with Hospira Inc in 2015.
One of Provider’s top executive in a statement revealed, “Pfizer can confirm that it has received grand jury subpoenas in connection with an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division and we are evaluating the requests,”
Some of the top news reporters made efforts to reach out to the Justice department in the hope it would give its comments in regards to the matter. Unfortunately, that did not happen after it turned them down upon refusing to give comments.
The recent probe comes during a wake when there is actually a shortage of the intravenous saline solutions commonly utilized in the hydration of hospital patients which as a matter of fact dates back to the year 2013, a period when the top drug manufacturers had taken to giving notifications to the various hospitals in regards to the fact that they would soon experience major delays in the provision of services.
In 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was reportedly said to have added solutions to its drug shortage list, revealing that the shortage had been sparked by a number of factors, the hospital demand most probably related to the flu season being one of them. Whatever the future holds is something we just have to wait and see!
