Shipping Research Drugs Out-of-State

Purpose/ Applicability: This process is only acceptable for research drugs and not patient-specific prescriptions. This SOP is to clarify the process for shipping small quantities of research drugs out-of-state since the VTH is not allowed to ship prescriptions out-of-state. For any research drugs that will be shipped out-of-state, the Pharmacy Service Head must be notified beforehand. 

Scope: Applies to small quantities of research drugs shipped out-of-state. 

Definition(s):
Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) – The collective clinical services of the Large Animal Clinic, Midwest Equine, the Small Animal Clinic, and the Veterinary Medicine South Clinic.

Procedure:
When a research drug needs to be shipped out of state, the VTH service starts the process by doing the following:

1. Consult with the study sponsor to verify that this process meets the requirements of the study. Once study sponsor agreement has been obtained, proceed with the following steps.
2. Determine the client would like it shipped to their local vet.
3. Contact the veterinarian that the medication will be shipped to. Obtain their agreement to receiving an unlabeled med that only indicates the patient’s name and drug name. That veterinarian will then be responsible for “prescribing” the medication. Provide the veterinarian with any necessary information.
4. Put in the prescription as outlined for the study into SANDI and indicate in the directions that this will be shipped out of state per provided information. Pin the prescription.
5. Bring a note to pharmacy with the following information: Patient name, vet clinic address we are shipping the unlabeled med to, who it should be attn to, type of shipping desired (overnight or ground), and if the client or the study will be paying for the shipping.
6. If the study is paying for the shipping, submit an adjustment request.
   
   

Once the prescription indicated in step 3 is pinned, pharmacy will do the following:

1. Pin the prescription and print the label.
2. Highlight the note from the service in the directions
3. Place the label and prescribed medication into a bin to wait for the additional info from the service. Note: Do not label the medication as it will need to be sent unlabeled.
4. Once the service has provided the information indicated in step 4, add the appropriate shipping charge to the client account. If the client is paying for shipping, contact the client for payment info.
5. Write the patient’s name on a sticky note and affix to the drug. Pack the drug and ship as normal to the address provided by the service.
6. Delete the prescription entry from SANDI and toss the label.