New Mexico News: Drug Substitution

September 1, 2007 4:10 PM

Published in the September 2007 New Mexico Board of Pharmacy Newsletter

The Board has received several requests/complaints from practitioners concerning the substitution of the prescribed drug with a drug that is not listed by Food and Drug Administration as therapeutically equivalent. The New Mexico Product Selection Act states, “upon receipt of a prescription written for a drug that appears on the Federal Food and Drug Administration’s Approved Prescription Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluation List (Orange Book.) A pharmacist may dispense any of the therapeutically equivalent drugs that appear on the list.”
The problem is that not all generic drugs appear on the list. The manufacturer of the generic product must have its product approved. In addition, some products such as Enjuvia®, a brand of synthetic conjugated estrogens, does not have any generic equivalents listed.
Please verify that the product you are using to substitute for the drug prescribed is listed as therapeutically equivalent in the “Orange Book.”