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Imported since 2017, the old formula of Levothyrox, marketed under the name Euthyrox, will be extended until 2025. It was to be extended temporarily until 2023. A relief for thousands of patients amid the battle judicial around the “new formula”.
The old formula will be prolonged rancid in 2024 and 2025 according to the Merck laboratory which manufactures this drug. This extension follows others, the last of which had committed to extending its distribution until 2023.
A new extension of the distribution of the old formula
For several years, Merck has responded positively to the request of the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) by temporarily and transitionally importing Euthyrox into France, strictly identical to the old Levothyrox formula but intended to other markets.
The laboratory nevertheless emphasizes “the need for healthcare professionals to help patients find the long-term treatment that best suits them, in order to anticipate the day when this old formula will no longer be available at all“. These stocks come from batches normally intended for the last countries which have not yet switched to the new formula: Germany, Russia, Argentina, etc.
Relief for patient associations
The news did not take long to react to patient associations, such as the French Association of Thyroid Patients (AFMT), delighted to have been able to obtain this extension which is not the first: in the face of the side effects attributed to the new formula, the distribution of the old formula, which was to end in 2020, was extended several times. “an immense relief for around 100,000 patients concerned” underlined the AFMT.
A legal battle still ongoing
As a reminder, levothyrox, a drug intended to correct hypothyroidism, has been at the heart of a legal case since its formula change in 2017. In question? The Merck laboratory is accused of aggravated deception following the side effects that patients experienced after changing the excipients. Between March 2017 and April 2018, some 31,000 patients suffering from headaches, insomnia, dizziness and other side effects had blamed the new formula.
Monday December 5, 2022, the National Medicines Safety Agency was indicted by an investigating judge for deception.