HRT products could be shipped to UK from Europe next week

theguardian.com:

Extra supplies of hormone replacement therapy products could be shipped to the UK from France and Poland as soon as next week, a major manufacturer has said after crisis meetings were held to address the nationwide shortage.

Tina Backhouse, the general UK manager at Theramex, which makes about a dozen HRT drugs, including Bijuva pills and Femseven patches, said the company needed special permission to bring in products from France that were not licensed in the UK. Theramex’s products are mainly made in Germany, and some are only licensed in other European countries.

Backhouse met the UK’s newly appointed HRT tsar, Madelaine McTernan, and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency this week and expects to obtain consent after a further meeting with the agency on Monday.

“We are working with MHRA to get special permission. It’s not an unusual thing, other companies do it,” she said. “I don’t think it will be long, we’ve got it [the stock] ready.”

Theramex, a private equity-owned pharmaceutical firm based in London, is also preparing to bring in HRT patches from Poland, which are licensed in the UK but need English labels.

“We are looking for short-term solutions as well as longer-term solutions in terms of bringing other products from other countries in,” Backhouse said.

The UK appears to be the only country with a shortage of HRT products. It was triggered by a surge in demand after the TV presenters Davina McCall and Mariella Frostrup spoke about their menopause experiences.

Besins Healthcare, a privately owned firm based in Brussels which makes the most popular oestrogen gel product, said on Thursday that it was “looking at all options for increasing short-term supplies of Oestrogel into the UK”.

The British