Petition urges action on vitamin B6 form ban
The ANH-USA said the FDA had supported a citizen’s petition lodged by the pharma firm, BioStratum, which brought Pyridoxamine under its control and warned a compound natural B6 converted to in the body – P5P – could also come under drug company control.
Medicure Pharma had lodged a petition for that to occur, ANH-USA said.
ANH-USA highlighted the Medicure Pharma petition that spelled out its motivation for lodging the petition.
“Pharmaceutical companies developing new drugs must be protected from companies that may seek to market the ingredients in those drugs as dietary supplements,” the petition reads.
“The marketing of such products has the potential to undermine the incentive for the development of new drugs because many people may choose to purchase the supplements rather than the drugs.”
The ANH-USA said: “This is not of course a case of supplement producers creating a product to compete with an existing prescription drug. It is just the reverse. P5P, the natural and bioactive form of B6, has existed in food for as long as there have been humans and has been available as a supplement for years. Medicure seems to be saying: If it seems profitable, let’s just turn a critical vitamin, one essential for human life, into a drug, make it available only by subscription, and mark up the price. This is truly outrageous.”
Medicure was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
The petition can be found here.
