Weatherford Compounding Pharmacy gets FDA site visit

Personnel from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Customs confiscated items sent by a Canadian supplier to Weatherford Compounding Pharmacy in Fort Worth, Texas, during a site visit Tuesday, the attorney for the business said Friday.

The attorney, Charles Aris, said Weatherford remained open for business after the site visit, and he said the officials for the federal agencies were focused solely on the shipments from the Canadian supplier, rather than the business’s own supplies. Weatherford is one of several large Internet compounding pharmacies in the United States that sells a vast array of products to horse-racing clients.

“There were no citations, no arrests,” said Aris. “It appeared that they were only targeting a Canadian supplier, and it wasn’t any specific substance. Just anything from that one supplier.”

Compounding pharmacies like Weatherford have drawn increasing amounts of scrutiny from some horse-racing officials because of concerns that the businesses are marketing substances as performance enhancers even if the substances have no active ingredients. Tests of many of the substances have turned up innocuous solutions of amino acids and vitamins, even if the substances are marketed as having powerful painkilling or performance-enhancing effects.

Weatherford’s own website states that it does not “compound or carry any controlled substances.” Controlled substances are those regulated by the FDA.

The FDA has not responded to an e-mail about the nature and intent of the site visit.

The owner of Weatherford, Joe Landers, had not responded to a phone call by late morning Friday.