« How exercise helps patients with peripheral artery disease | Home | Osteoporosis and low BMD are risk factors for stroke, death »

Nature-Throid Natural Thyroid: A New Update on Production Status

By jeremyc | December 3, 2009

Source: About.com

Today, I had an opportunity to speak with Dai Jinn, the Chief Science Officer and Chief Pharmacist at RLC Labs, maker of Nature-Throid and Westhroid.When I’d spoken with RLC and reported in my update on Monday, November 23 Nature-Throid Natural Desiccated Thyroid: A Status Report, Dai had said that they would begin shipping 1 grain Nature-Throid this week.

As some thyroid patients have found, however, after calling the company, or checking with their pharmacies, this is not happening.

So I checked in with Dai to find out what the situation is and what thyroid patients can expect, and how thyroid patients taking natural desiccated thyroid can plan for the next several months.

First, according to Dai, the issue for RLC at present is that production levels are in flux. Production capacity depends on the supply of raw materials, and RLC is getting raw material — natural desiccated thyroid powder / Thyroid USP — from what appears to be several suppliers. While RLC will not share the names of the companies supplying their raw material, they have said that the incoming product is not necessarily consistent in terms of quality, and availability has been fluctuating.

Dai said, however, that wherever he is sourcing his natural desiccated thyroid powder, the critical issue for him and RLC is quality control. This means that not all the raw material he gets is being used to produce the RLC natural desiccated thyroid products.

But that also means that even if raw material is coming in, not all of it is being made into Nature-Throid or Westhroid.

So, when can you expect to get Nature-Throid? At this point, Nature-throid (and Westhroid) are still in a backorder situation, and RLC hopes to begin shipping 1 grain (65 mg) Nature-Throid later this week — but next week is more realistic and likely. But keep in mind, that means that it’s likely that the Nature-Throid that begins shipping in the next two weeks would be available in pharmacies late December or early January.

Based on the raw material supply issue, RLC will be trying to get out of the backorder situation as soon as possible, and they expect to be shipping more 1 grain Nature-Throid over the next month. Dai also said that ½ grain and ¼ grain size pills will be next to come out of backorder, but that will depend on the availability and quality of the raw material supply.

In the meantime, Armour Thyroid (the natural desiccated thyroid drug made by Forest Laboratories), is also almost entirely unavailable. A small amount of 1 grain (60 mg) tablets have been released by the manufacturer in the last month, but Forest is adamantly refusing to discuss Armour Thyroid’s availability, and when (or if) Armour will be back in production. (There’s reason to speculate that Forest may in fact be planning to take both Armour and Thyrolar off the market. )

Implications for Patients

What does this mean for thyroid patients taking natural desiccated thyroid?

My advice is, don’t plan on being able to get Nature-Throid or Westhroid (or Armour, for that matter) anytime in December.

That means, even if you’re planning to start or return to Nature-Throid when it comes back on the market, you should make sure that you have a supply of your current thyroid medication that will last you through at least February 2010.

If you need a prescription from your doctor for a refill, contact the doctor/book your appointment now. And if you need to order from Canada or elsewhere and wait for delivery, place your orders accordingly so you are not left without medication.

Topics: | Thyroid |

Comments are closed.