Senate puts off vote for track-and-trace, compounding bill

NEW YORK — The Senate was expected to take up a bill designed to secure the drug supply chain and establish a list of "do not compound" medications, but left for recess Friday without voting on it.

The bill, S. 959, the Pharmaceutical Quality, Security and Accountability Act, had received some support from groups like the National Community Pharmacists Association, which supported the bill's goal of enhancing security, but expressed reservations about the compounding provision. That part was included in response to last year's deadly meningitis outbreak linked to the New England Compounding Center. The Senate had folded the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, S. 957, to the bill.

In a blog post Friday, McDonald Hopkins drug and pharmacy attorney and Illinois State Pharmacy Board vice chairman Ned Milenkovich wrote that even if the Senate passes the bill in September 2013, it will still need time to reconcile it with a law passed in the House in June, H.R. 1919. Another draft bill, currently under consideration by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, called the Compounding Clarity Act of 2013, is significantly different from the Senate version.

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