Pharmacy, Outbreak | featured news

...These recent quality lapses at big drug companies show that contamination and shoddy practices extend well beyond the loosely regulated compounding pharmacies that have attracted attention because of their link to an outbreak of meningitis... [S]everal industry observers and former plant employees said that the recent quality issues were troubling and that manufacturers had been reluctant to fix problems because stopping production was simply too costly in a business where profits were driven by volume.

Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis AG said Friday it has successfully produced a first batch of swine flu vaccine weeks ahead of expectations.