The high street pharmacy this week recalled one batch of “Boots Paracetamol 500mg tablets 16s” after discovering it “contains the incorrect packaging”.
The product contains blister packaging for aspirin rather than paracetamol, the multiple said.
“The foiled blister insert will read Boots Aspirin 300mg dispersible tablets”, it added.
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But the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) today (March 4) said that Boots and its supplier Aspar Pharmaceuticals Limited “have confirmed that the tablets in the blister packs are Paracetamol 500mg and not aspirin”.
The affected batch – batch 241005, item code 81-99-922 – has an expiry date of 12/2029 and the recall affects 119,964 packs of the medicine, it added.
According to the multiple, “the supplier is currently conducting a full investigation, including on the tablet”.
“Full refund”
An MHRA medicine recall notification today warned pharmacists to stop supplying the affected batch – which is only sold in Boots stores and Boots online pharmacy – “immediately”, quarantine all stock and return it to their supplier.
It told them to advise patients supplied the batch to stop using the product and return it to their local Boots store, adding that a “full refund” will be issued “with or without a receipt”.
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It comes after the MHRA announced in January that 18 batches of cough medicine were being recalled after “foreign material” was found in some bottles.
Some of the affected batches included cough medicine sold in Tesco and Asda, the regulator said, adding at the time that “the contamination was identified by a single customer complaint and the investigation and analysis remains ongoing.”
Boots latest
Meanwhile, Boots parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) saw its shares soar last month after reports that its talks to “sell itself” to private equity firm Sycamore Partners are “alive”.
And in the same month, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) announced that it was in the “final stages” of preparing the case for those who made a complaint under the Boots Pension Scheme’s dispute resolution procedure.
“We are now in the final stages of preparing and submitting the case, which will cover all issues impacting our members,” it said, adding that “the case will be submitted at the end of” February”.
