On January 16th 2015, a California dietary supplement manufacturer, Health One Pharmaceuticals, Inc., was ordered to stop sales of its products until the company meets certain U.S. Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) regulations and mandated standards (Current Good Manufacturing Practices or “CGMPs”). According to the FDA, the steps taken by the manufacturer in response to an FDA warning letter and FDA inspections did not bring the facility back into compliance with the CGMPs, prompting FDA to move forward with the action for injunction. In the case against the company, the judge signed a consent decree of permanent injunction, which requires Health One to recall and destroy all dietary supplements that the company manufactured, prepared, packed, labeled, held, or distributed between September 1, 2011 and January 15, 2015. Health One is a private label and contract manufacturer of tablets, pills, and powders. Their products include herbal formulations, vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, effervescent and meal replacement products.
The consent decree and permanent injunction stemmed from a FDA warning letter issued to Health One in March of 2012, which laid out serious violations of FDA regulations rules. The FDA Warning Letter can be read in its entirety here. The FDA inspected Health One’s manufacturing facility in September 2011 and found serious violations of the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice (“CGMP”) for dietary supplements. Some of the violations that Health One received included failure to perform tests to verify the identity of dietary ingredients used to manufacture the supplements, failure to establish appropriate manufacturing controls, and failure to maintain, clean and sanitize equipment. Further follow-up inspections revealed that Health One failed to correct many of the manufacturing violations initially cited in the FDA warning letter. Since Health One was in violation of the CGMP, its products were considered “adulterated” by the FDA under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
There are CGMPs for various industries, including foods, dietary supplements, drugs and medical devices. To help businesses comply with FDA regulations and manufacturing requirements and explain the rules for industry, the FDA has issued guidance documents for many industries, which can be found here.
Compliance with the FDA regulations is an increasingly difficult task for businesses and failure to comply can spell disaster for companies. In order to avoid recalls and permanent injunctions, it is very important to comply with the CGMP’s and respond appropriately to FDA warning letters. If you have any questions regarding compliance with the various CGMP’s or the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, please do not hesitate to contact us at contact@sglawfl.com.