Singapore Halts Some Stomach Acid Drug Sales on Cancer Concern

(Bloomberg) -- Singapore health officials halted sales of some stomach acid drugs amid spreading concerns about the presence of a potential carcinogen in medications.

Sale and supply of eight brands of the drugs were suspended after they were found to contain an impurity called NDMA that’s been linked to cancer, Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority said Monday in a statement. Levels of the substance exceeded the internationally accepted rate, it said.

Health regulators raised an alarm about the drugs on Friday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency each said they were investigating levels of NDMA in the treatments for heartburn and other gastrointestinal disorders. The class of drugs, whose active ingredient is called ranitidine, includes Sanofi’s Zantac and its generic copies.

Singapore officials said they’re “working with the companies supplying these medicines and international regulatory agencies to verify the causes of the contamination, and to identify the necessary measures to address the issue.”

NDMA, or N-Nitrosodimethylamine, has been deemed a likely human carcinogen. It can be found in cooked or cured meats such as bacon and is a common industrial byproduct. The same chemical has been found in high levels in dozens of versions of a hypertension treatment called valsartan, and many have been recalled.

Paris-based Sanofi said in an email that it takes patient safety seriously and is committed to working with the FDA and other health regulators. Zantac meets all safety requirements for the market, it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in London at jlauerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Anne Pollak, Thomas Mulier

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