By Michael Erman and David Ljunggren
(Reuters) -Most of the tornado damage at Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE)'s Rocky Mount, North Carolina plant was to the warehouse and not manufacturing facilities, CEO Albert Bourla said on Friday, easing concerns about long-term drug shortages from the plant.
The tornado that struck the site on Wednesday completely destroyed the warehouse, but production facilities there do not seem to have suffered major damage.
Nonetheless, Bourla told a news conference in Rocky Mount that it will be a monumental task to repair the damage. Restarting facilities at the plant will take weeks, even if there is no structural damage.
"We are moving full speed to bring this manufacturing plant into action again," Bourla said, noting that crews were working to restore power to the plant. In the meantime, the company is trying to identify alternative manufacturing locations in the U.S.
The Rocky Mount plant is one of the largest factories for sterile injectable medicines in the world. Its products include anesthesia, painkillers and anti-infective medicines for use in hospitals.
Nearly 25% of Pfizer's sterile injectables used in U.S. hospitals are produced there, according to the company's website.
The number of U.S. drug shortages is already near a 10-year high, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and shortages caused by damage at the Pfizer plant could strain hospitals further.
Bourla said Pfizer had about six weeks of inventory so hospitals would not feel the absence or production for some weeks.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration late on Friday said that it is working closely with Pfizer to assess the impact of the damage at its facility, adding that, it does not expect any immediate significant impacts on supply given the products are currently at hospitals and in the distribution system.
The FDA added that it has initiated mitigation steps for those products produced at this plant, that are already in, or may be, at risk of shortage by looking for additional sources and asking other manufacturers to prepare to ramp up production, if needed.
The impact of the warehouse damage will be less severe than if manufacturing areas had been seriously hit, said Soumi Saha, senior vice president of government affairs at Premier Inc, which buys drugs on behalf of hospitals and health care systems.
"Damage to a warehousing facility will cause some downstream impact, but it should be fairly minimal and short term versus if there was sustained damage to any of the manufacturing or production facilities, which could mean longer term impacts and a greater severity of the shortages," Saha said in an interview.
Pfizer has not disclosed the specific products it makes at the plant. However, Lisa Mulloy, chief pharmacy officer at New York's Northwell Health, said the health care system's procurement team had been working to procure two pain medications, hydromorphone and fentanyl, from other manufacturers and wholesalers.
"Health systems are probably just ordering, ordering, ordering as much as they can, which can really exacerbate and create other shortages," said Erin Fox, senior director of drug information at University of Utah Health.