From the December 2005 issue

Pharmacies and physicians should have recently received a communication from Reliant Pharmaceuticals warning about the potential for confusing OMACOR (omega-3-acid ethyl esters) prescriptions with AMICAR (aminocaproic acid) prescriptions. Our November 2005 newsletter reported such an incident, and at that time, we had asked the company to take action. We appreciate the timeliness of Reliant’s response and that many of our recommendations were communicated to practitioners. However, we still feel that these two drug names and the shared 1 g oral dosage strengths are far too similar. Thus, we stand by our recommendation that this brand name should be changed. The letter that was faxed to pharmacies in November can be viewed here.