North Carolina News: Item 2184 - Tacrolimus Added to the North Carolina Narrow Therapeutic Index List

April 1, 2009 3:10 pm Topics: Prescription refills

Reprinted from the April 2009 North Carolina Board of Pharmacy Newsletter.

The Pharmacy Practice Act provides:
A prescription for a narrow therapeutic index drug shall be refilled using only the same drug product by the same manufacturer that the pharmacist last dispensed under the prescription, unless the prescriber is notified by the pharmacist prior to the dispensing of another manufacturer’s product, and the prescriber and the patient give documented consent to the dispensing of the other manufacturer’s product. For purposes of this subsection, the term “refilled” shall include a new prescription written at the expiration of a prescription which continues the patient’s therapy on a narrow therapeutic index drug.

N.C.G.S. §90-85.28(b1).

On January 27, 2009, North Carolina’s Secretary of Health and Human Services directed that oral dosage forms of tacrolimus be added to the narrow therapeutic index list. Secretary Lanier Cansler’s order followed several months of information gathering and hearings by the Board of Pharmacy, Medical Board, and State Health Director.

The current list of narrow therapeutic index drugs is found at www.ncbop.org/faqs/Pharmacist/faq_NTIDrugs
.htm.