The Department of Health and Social Care has issued a medicine supply notification for oral contraceptive tablets of six brands.
The following oral contraceptive preparations are currently out of stock and products are expected to return to pharmacies next year.
| Product affected | Ingredients | Anticipated Resupply Date | Management Advice |
| Brevinor | Ethinylestradiol/norethisterone 35microgram/500 microgram tablets | w/c 11 January 2021 | No exact equivalent available in the UK market. Unlicensed imports have been sourced, lead times vary. |
| Femodette | Ethinylestradiol 20microgram / Gestodene 75microgram tablets | w/c 18 January 2021 | Equivalent alternatives remain available, and can support an increase in demand: Akizza, Millinette. |
| Norimin | Ethinylestradiol/norethisterone 35microgram/1mg tablets | w/c 11 January 2021 | No exact equivalent available in the UK market. Unlicensed imports have been sourced, lead times vary. |
| Norinyl-1 | Mestranol 50microgram / Norethisterone 1mg tablets | w/c 22 February 2021 | No exact equivalent available in the UK market. Unlicensed imports have been sourced, lead times vary. |
| Synphase | Ethinylestradiol/norethisterone/ 35microgram/500microgram and 35microgram/1mg tablets | w/c 4 January 2021 | Unlicensed imports of Synphase tablets have been sourced; lead times vary. |
| Yiznell | Ethinylestradiol/drospirenone 30microgram/3mg tablets | Early January 2021 | Equivalent alternatives with same composition remain available from suppliers of following brands: Dretine, Yacella, Yasmin, Ellaite and Lucette. |
Target Healthcare and Durbin have confirmed that they can source unlicensed imports of Brevinor tablets.
Pharma firms Durbin and Waymade have assured that they can source unlicensed imports of Norimin tablets.
Target Healthcare will source unlicensed imports of Norinyl-1 tablets to avert any steep rise in demand for the product in the market.
Four drug manufacturers including Clinigen, Mawdsley’s Unlicensed, Target Healthcare, and Waymade have confirmed they can source unlicensed imports of Synphase tablets.
If there is currently no listing on dm+d for the imported product for prescribers to select using their prescribing systems an EPS prescription for unlicensed product cannot be issued.
If a prescriber wishes to prescribe an unlicensed import, an FP10 paper prescription should be issued as ‘Required Product (Special Order)‘ and endorsed by the pharmacy as a non-Part VIIIB special.
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