Medicine recalls in Saudi Arabia: a retrospective review of drug alerts (January 2010–January 2019)

Background A new incidence of a substandard medicinal product is discovered weekly as stated by the World Health Organization (WHO) around the world. After discovering an incidence of a substandard medicinal product, a drug recall announced to remove the affected medicinal product from the market. Drug recalls in SaudiArabia (SA) are made by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) or the distributors of the drug when certain criteria are met. A retrospective study of drug recalls in SA was carried out. Data were collected through a website search of the SFDA for drug recalls since January 2010–January 2019. Results SFDA recalled 84 substandard medicinal products which related to 47 alert letters and 52 drugs. The number of drug recall reported by SFDA increased six-folds in 2018 than in 2010. The major frequent therapeutic class of drug recall was the antihypertensive drugs followed by the antibiotic drugs (27.7% and 10.8%, respectively). The majority of the recalls were tablets followed by parenteral dosage forms (58% and 25%, respectively). The major reasons for the drug recalls were due to contamination (32.14%) followed by non-compliance with manufacturer’s specifications (20.48%). Two manufacturers were accounted for 34.52% of all recalled drugs. Conclusion Substandard medicinal products are considered as a serious problem in SA. Contamination was the main cause of drug recalls, which requires root investigation of causes and for strict protective tools to be applied by drug manufacturers.