Last year, Pfiz­er stopped dis­tri­b­u­tion of megablock­buster smok­ing ces­sa­tion drug Chan­tix over an in­creased lev­el of car­cino­genic ni­trosamines.

Now, two of the Big Phar­ma’s blood pres­sure drugs have been re­called in Cana­da this week af­ter Cana­da’s health au­thor­i­ty found lev­els of a type of ni­trosamine too high to be al­lowed in the drugs.

Pfiz­er Cana­da re­called all 8 lots of blood pres­sure drug Ac­curet­ic yes­ter­day af­ter high­er-than-ap­proved lev­els of N-ni­troso-quinapril were found. That re­call was just two days af­ter the phar­ma sub­sidiary re­called 15 lots of In­der­al-LA, an­oth­er blood pres­sure drug, over sim­i­lar con­cerns over ni­trosamines.

The reg­u­la­tor said in re­call no­tices for the two drugs that there’s no im­me­di­ate risk in tak­ing Pfiz­er’s meds, at least tem­porar­i­ly. The agency ad­vised, “there is no im­me­di­ate risk in con­tin­u­ing to tem­porar­i­ly take the re­called Ac­curet­ic med­ica­tion since the po­ten­tial risk of can­cer is with long-term ex­po­sure (every day for 70 years) to the ni­trosamine im­pu­ri­ty above the ac­cept­able lev­el.”

How­ev­er, pa­tients on those drugs should talk to a doc­tor about treat­ment al­ter­na­tives, ac­cord­ing to Health Cana­da.

“Con­tin­ue tak­ing your med­ica­tion un­less you have been ad­vised to stop by your health care provider. Not treat­ing your con­di­tion pos­es a greater health risk,” the reg­u­la­tor added.

Pfiz­er Cana­da kept it sim­ple — say­ing in a state­ment to End­points News, “In re­sponse to re­quests from var­i­ous reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ties, man­u­fac­tur­ers across the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try have been eval­u­at­ing the po­ten­tial for the pres­ence or for­ma­tion of cer­tain im­pu­ri­ties, called ni­trosamines, in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts. There is no im­me­di­ate risk to pa­tients tak­ing this med­ica­tion.”

7 of the 8 lots that were re­called for Ac­curet­ic are ex­pir­ing in Ju­ly, with the last one ex­pir­ing some­time next year. For In­der­al-LA, all but two of the lots of drugs ex­pire in 2023 and 2024.

Pfiz­er halt­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion of its an­ti-smok­ing med Chan­tix, re­call­ing four lots of the drug last June — a year af­ter the FDA found high lev­els of the ni­trosamine ND­MA in the gener­ic di­a­betes drug met­formin. That be­gan a mul­ti-month saga when the FDA said it would still al­low cer­tain man­u­fac­tur­ers to dis­trib­ute batch­es of the drug that have more than the usu­al ni­trosamine lev­els, so long as the im­pu­ri­ty re­mains un­der the in­ter­im ac­cept­able lim­it.

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.