Duragesic Recall Causes More Patch Woes for J&J

Johnson & Johnson's PriCara unit is recalling two lots of its Duragesic fentanyl pain patch, according to the WSJ. The patch is used for opioid-tolerant patients who need round-the-clock pain relief. Fentanyl is also highly addictive. J&J's history of skin-patch-based medicine delivery systems is an unfortunate one:

• The company also issued a similar recall in February for a larger batch of patches.
• This RTT report says that this is the fifth Duragesic/fentanyl recall since 1994.*
• BNET readers know that J&J has lost at least three lawsuits in which there were fatalities involving patch overdoses.
• A different J&J patch, the Ortho Evra birth control patch, has also had excess-delivery-of-drug problems. J&J paid $68 million to settled hundreds of cases in which plaintiffs claimed they had ben given strokes, embolisms and heart attacks by Ortho Evra. (Estrogen-based birth control increases blood-clot risks.)
• That patch allegedly killed 40 women, and the company stopped actively marketing Ortho Evra -- although the product remains on the market.

Anyone who comes in contact with fentanyl gel should thoroughly wash exposed skin with large amounts of water only; do not use soap, alcohol, lotions, oils or other products to remove the medicine gel because they may increase the medicine's ability to go through the skin.

* Is this true? Contact me if you have better information.