Abbott hit by cargo thieves once again

Cargo thieves have targeted another shipment of Abbott Laboratories' nutritional products, making off with a full truckload (FTL) of its Ensure product from a lot near Montreal airport in Canada.

The shipment contained 2,600 cases of vanilla-flavoured Ensure Plus, a nutritional product which provides concentrated calories and protein to help patients gain or maintain healthy weight, with the lot number 16088FH00.

It was destined for Virginia in the USA, so is labelled in English, rather than the dual French/English labelling carried by product sold in the Canadian market, according to an alert issued by the Pharmaceutical Cargo Security Coalition. The value of the shipment has not been disclosed but is estimated to have a retail value of around $75,000-$100,000.

A year ago another Abbott shipment of Ensure was stolen by thieves en route from Virginia to Florida in the USA. Later in the year the company also lost a truck containing $4m-worth of diabetes testing equipment from a lot in Louisville, Kentucky.

US pharma theft news in brief

• Purdue Pharma has put up a $1,000 reward for information into two burglaries at a pharmacy in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which resulted in the theft of anxiety drug Klonopin (clonazepam) and painkiller Lortab (acetaminophen and hydrocodone), amongst other medicines.
• A courier delivering pharmaceuticals was stabbed with a screwdriver by a robber in an attempted last-mile robbery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 11. The subject fled empty-handed, and the courier's injuries were not life-threatening.
• A last-mile robbery took place in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 3, with numerous totes containing around $600,000 in assorted pharmaceutical products taken by a gang in the midst of a delivery round.
• Controlled medicines were taken from a vehicle delivering medicines to a hospital pharmacy in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 3, while the driver team were inside the facility. The thieves cut open seven totes but took drugs from just one, making off with products worth less than $1,000.