Scopace discontinued - WTF?

[Code Monkey]

I called two pharmacies, today, and got the same, sad, news from both that scopace has been discontinued. That's horrible for me. The only thing worse would be if scopolamine patches were discontinued as well. Does anyone know why this happened?

[Kourtjestr]

From another forum, after a quick google search: According to Craig Sherman, MD, who is the Medical Director at Hope Pharmaceutical, it has been discontinued due to a disruption in their supply. If you're concerned about it and want to encourage them to begin the process of replacing it, you should e-mail him at the company: According to Craig Sherman, MD, who is the Medical Director at Hope Pharmaceutical, it has been discontinued due to a disruption in their supply. If you're concerned about it and want to encourage them to begin the process of replacing it, you should e-mail him at the company:

[Kourtjestr]

On another note, have you tried dosing yourself with ginger in some form (candied seems least harsh)? Ginger's an ancient herbal remedy for nausea.

[scjoe]

I am not sure what supply got disrupted because Scopolamine is available from several sources (mostly China). I don't remember the name of the company that came up with the patch, but they also make the smokers patch and Johnson & Johnson bought them several years back for around $10 billion. Hope is a tiny private company that lists just one product on its website. The pills were cheap whereas the patch is expensive. Without the competition of Scopace, Johnson & Johnson will sell more of the expensive patches. I think the loss of Scopace is just an issue of profitability and large company versus small.

[Bubbletrubble]

If I were in your situation (need Scopace and not able to obtain it in the U.S. due to supply issues), I would consider ordering the medication online from a reputable pharmacy in another country. For example, I know of some U.S. citizens who mail order prescription medications from Canada. I believe such orders are reviewed by a Canadian physician and the U.S. prescription may have to be "rewritten" by a Canadian physician to be in compliance with Canadian law.

Pay attention to shipping charges as this may significantly influence cost/pill, particularly for smaller orders.

Good luck...

[Kourtjestr]

Having spent 6 years working in a pharmacy - sometimes, a med is dropped just because it simply isn't profitable enough to keep on the company's manufacturing list. I know a lot more patches move than pills, so it probably wasn't something worth doing, from their perspective.

[DevonDiver]

Moderator's Comments:

Moved to Diving Medicine.

[Code Monkey]

Thanks, all. I saw in another thread that Kwells, an over-the-counter medicine in Australia, has the same active ingredient as Scopace. A single pill seems to be 3/4 of the standard dosage of Scopace. I haven't ordered any but others on this board have. Hopefully, this works out to be a reasonable way to solve this problem.

+Kourtjestr, ginger works great on nasea but, unfortunately for me, not at all on dizziness. Thanks for the thought, though!

[DocVikingo]

Thanks, all. I saw in another thread that Kwells, an over-the-counter medicine in Australia, has the same active ingredient as Scopace.

Hi Code Monkey,

Yes. See post 12 in the following thread dated 08/18/09--> Ginger pills for motion sickness

"Kwells" (Bayer Healthcare) is available OTC and online in OZ (ePharmacy - Kwells Travel Sickness Tablets 10), but some other countries require a prescription, e.g., the UK.

That particular product is not marketed in the USA and medical hyoscine hydrobromide requires a prescription here.

Regards,

DocVikingo

[Code Monkey]

So, DocVikingo,

In the other thread, you responded to the statement that "these pills [I assume Scopace and Kwells]

do roughly the same job." is "arguably is incorrect". What did you mean by that? My (limited) understanding is that they were chemically the same except for dosage.