Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the supply of (a) Zaditen tablets, (b) Ketotifen Zaditen Elixir and (c) other Ketotifen products; and what steps his Department is taking to secure the supply of those medicines.
The Department is aware that Alfasigma, the sole licensed supplier of ketotifen tablets and oral syrup in the United Kingdom made the decision to withdraw this product from the UK market during 2019 due to commercial reasons.
Following ongoing discussions between the Department and Alfasigma, the company have since reversed this decision and informed us that they will be reintroducing ketotifen tablets and oral solution to the UK. Supplies will be available again during April 2020. In the interim, supplies of unlicensed ketotifen products from abroad have been made available by specialist importer companies. Information about this issue and the availability of the unlicensed product has been communicated to the National Health Service and relevant patient groups.