FDA has ongoing assessment, surveillance, compliance and pharmaceutical quality efforts across every product area, and we will continue to work with drug manufacturers to ensure safe, effective and high-quality drugs for the American public. When we identify new and previously unrecognized risks to safety and quality, we react swiftly to resolve the problem, as we have done in responding to the recent findings of nitrosamines in certain medicines.
Today, we have better testing methods than ever before, and we know what to look for in products’ chemical structures and manufacturing processes that may increase the risk of forming low levels of nitrosamines. Improved technology enables us to detect even trace amounts of impurities in drug products and may be the reason why more products have been found to have low levels of nitrosamines. The agency has strict standards for safety, effectiveness and quality, and our staff makes every effort to help keep the U.S. drug supply as safe as possible. We also work closely with international drug regulatory agencies so that we leverage resources and testing done outside the U.S. which can help inform testing of the U.S. drug supply. As our investigations and testing continues, along with the investigations done by other drug regulatory agencies, we may find low levels of nitrosamines in additional drugs.
